Low-power secure communication is one of the key enablers of applications, such as secure authentication and remote health monitoring. Radio wave-based communication method, such as Bluetooth, suffers from high-power requirements and physical signal leakage. Electro-quasi-static human body communication (EQS-HBC) utilizes the conductivity of the human body to use it as a communication medium and confine the signal within a close proximity of the body and enable low power consumption through low-frequency operation. This makes EQS-HBC an attractive alternative for such low-power, low-data-rate secure communication. In this article, we present the first >1 kb/s Sub- ${\underline {\mu}} \text{W}$ W ea R able Comm unication (Sub- $\mu $ WRComm), a secure EQS-HBC node, which uses EQS-HBC for physical security and an AES-256 engine for mathematical security and operate at sub- $\mu \text{W}$ power budget. The signal confinement property of EQS-HBC is demonstrated through finite element method (FEM) simulations and leakage measurements, establishing its security property. The Sub- $\mu $ WRComm system consumes only 415-nW total power, with 108-nW active power at the lowest power mode, operating at a data rate of 1 kb/s with −64-dBm sensitivity making it suitable for authentication and remote monitoring applications. This work presents a $100\times $ improvement compared with state-of-the-art HBC implementations while providing simultaneous physical and mathematical security for the first time.

中文翻译：

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亚μWRComm：415-nW 1–10-kb / s物理和数学安全的准静态HBC节点，用于身份验证和医疗应用

低功耗安全通信是应用程序的关键实现因素之一，例如安全身份验证和远程运行状况监视。诸如蓝牙的基于无线电波的通信方法遭受高功率要求和物理信号泄漏的困扰。准静态人体通信（EQS-HBC）利用人体的电导率将其用作通信介质，并将信号限制在人体附近，并通过低频操作实现低功耗。这使得EQS-HBC成为此类低功耗，低数据速率安全通信的有吸引力的替代方案。在本文中，我们介绍了第一个> 1 kb / s子 $ {\下划线{\ mu}} \ text {W} $ w ^ ea [R 有能力的 通讯 统一（Sub- $ \亩$ WRComm），这是一个安全的EQS-HBC节点，它使用EQS-HBC进行物理安全性，并使用AES-256引擎进行数学安全性，并在低于 $ \ mu \ text {W} $ 功率预算。通过有限元方法（FEM）仿真和泄漏测量证明了EQS-HBC的信号限制特性，从而确立了其安全特性。子 $ \亩$ WRComm系统仅消耗415nW的总功率，而最低功率模式下的有功功率为108nW，以1kb / s的数据速率运行，灵敏度为−64dBm，使其非常适合认证和远程监控应用。这项工作提出了一个 $ 100 \次$ 与最新的HBC实现相比有所改进，同时首次提供了同时的物理和数学安全性。