Skin-tenna - antenna uses your skin to trasmit signals, increases battery life

While most wireless devices these days are designed to broadcast RF signals that are strong enough to perpetuate through open air as well as penetrate through solid objects (like walls or human bodies), there’s a group of researchers that are looking to send wireless signals around an object, rather than through it.

NewScientistTech reports that researchers at the Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland have developed a “skin patch” antenna that is capable of propagating wireless signals over the surface of your skin. By taking advantage of the “creeping wave” effect that allows waves to travel along a surface, due to mismatches between the air and the surface, the “skin-tenna” allows wireless devices (like pacemakers) to communicate more efficiently with devices anywhere on the body.

Creeping wave signals require less transmission power than normal wireless signal broadcasts, because fewer signal waves are lost. That translates in to longer batter life for devices that can’t easily (pacemakers), or conveniently (wireless headphones), be recharged.

The future may be filled with wearable device are powered by body heat and blood, communicate by sending signals along the surface of our skin, and integrate with our clothing. Now that’s a future that sounds like fun.

[Via: textually]