Material property based analysis of Electro-Quasistatic Human-Structure Interactions

Identification of an energy-efficient communication channel for information exchange between humans and the web-enabled ‘smart’ devices that are present in the surroundings has been the topic of interest over the last few decades. Energy-efficient and physically secure Human Body Communication (HBC)-based capacitive Human-Structure Interaction (HSI) in Electro-Quasistatics (EQS) regime calls for an analysis of the material property of the structure that has a decisive influence on the HSI channel characteristics. This paper, for the first time, addresses the effect of electrical properties (permittivity and conductivity) of the communicating structure’s material on channel loss variation, and develops an equivalent circuit model highlighting its distributed nature. Finite Element Method (FEM) based simulations are performed to study the variations in channel behavior with the structure’s material properties. Results are analyzed to build up an understanding of the electrical properties of a communication medium that can provide low loss interface for applications involving Human-Machine Interactions (HMI).