Body Internet

What if the end of the smartphone era is brought about by innovations that allow us to use our skin or even our minds to interact with the internet? Researchers at Purdue University are developing technologies that could revolutionize human-device interactions.

In the near future, you might make payments by touching a machine with your finger instead of using a card or smartphone. Imagine accessing GPS with your feet or transferring files with a handshake. In 15 to 20 years, you could adjust your home’s thermostat just by thinking about it.

The lab of Shreyas Sen, Elmore Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is working on making this a reality. They are developing technologies that allow your body to act as a local internet connection for devices you wear, hold, or have implanted, such as a pacemaker. This would enable digital tasks through physical touch or even mental commands, instead of screens.

“Currently, our gateway to the internet is a smartphone, which we spend a significant amount of time looking at. If we don’t want this future, technology must evolve,” said Sen. “The smartphone could be deconstructed and distributed around you, becoming invisible to the eye.”

Wearables like smartwatches and wireless headphones are starting to deconstruct the smartphone, but they still require screens. Even new devices like Humane’s AI Pin, which uses voice commands, aim to consolidate functions into one device. Sen’s lab has invented two technologies to move beyond this paradigm: Wi-R and a new brain implant concept.

Wi-R creates an “internet” within your body, enabling communication between smartphones, laptops, wearables, and implantable devices through touch. For example, you could send a photo by poking someone. Patent applications for these inventions have been filed. The brain implant concept, potentially available in a couple of decades, would allow control of technology with thoughts. Sen’s lab published initial findings in *Nature Electronics*, showing the potential to address key issues in developing brain implants for “mind control.”

Wi-R uses low-frequency electro-quasistatic signals, faster than Bluetooth, and only accessible through a person’s skin. In 2020, Sen and former students founded Ixana to commercialize Wi-R. At CES, they demonstrated Wi-R’s ability to transmit music through touch. Music from a smartphone could be played on another device when touched or transferred to another person by touching their skin.

As Sen’s lab explored these signals, they demonstrated their use in brain communication, leading to the brain implant concept. This method, wire-free inside the brain, uses the brain’s natural ability to carry electrical signals, potentially transmitting data faster than current technologies like Neuralink, which requires wires.

The brain implant could, in theory, transmit data at tens of megabits per second, capturing signals from a thousand neurons simultaneously, something no current technology can achieve. “Humans are getting augmented by machines, but our research shows that machines can help without requiring constant screen interaction,” Sen said.