Experimentation and calibration of Near-Field UHF Epidermal Communication for emerging Tactile Internet

Tactile Internet (TI) is an emerging paradigm of the Internet of Things that exploits the Wireless Body Area Network wherein free-hand gestures are used as human/computer interface. The recently introduced Radiofrequency Augmentation Devices (R-FADs), which are assistive tools for sensory impaired people, can be considered also a promising enabler for TI. The core of R-FAD systems is a wrist reader and a fingertip sensor tag. An R-FAD for 'sensing' of dielectric objects can provide the users with feedback about the touched material. In this paper, we evaluate the variability of an R-FAD response on a personal basis. Results revealed that the user-specific variability can be mitigated by performing a calibration with respect to a high-permittivity material.