Researchers aim to use humans as wireless nodes

Media coverage: new project could help create a powerful new mobile internet network.

Researchers at Queen’s University Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) in Belfast are investigating how small sensors carried by members of the public, in items such as next generation smartphones, could communicate with each other to create potentially vast body-to-body networks (BBNs). The new project could help create a powerful new mobile internet network.

The new sensors would interact to transmit data, providing ‘anytime, anywhere’ mobile network connectivity and could have social benefits such as improvements in mobile gaming and remote healthcare, along with new precision monitoring of athletes and real-time tactical training in team sports.

Dr Simon Cotton, from ECIT’s wireless communications research group, has been awarded a joint five-year Research Fellowship by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to examine how the new technology can be harnessed to become part of everyday life.

Further information on the work of ECIT’s Wireless Communications Research Group can be found online on the Wireless Communications Research website.

Further information on EPSRC research fellowships can be found in the fellowships area.