Body-to-body networks could be future of mobile internet

Dr Simon Cotton from the wireless communications research group at Queen’s University is leading a five-year £550,000 project, sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering and EPSRC, aimed at modelling how signals could propagate from one person to another through sensors either worn on the body or in a mobile phone.

Once the results of the research are published next year,  he said, it will provide a ‘foundation stone’ for wireless systems designers wishing to develop enabling technology.

Cotton believes that body-to-body networks (BBNs) will create a new paradigm for mobile communications.

‘We’re going from person to person as opposed to going from mobile phone to base station back down to another person,’ he said.

If the idea takes off, BBNs could lead to a reduction in the number of base stations needed to service mobile phone users, particularly in areas of high population density.

Cotton added that BBNs would also reduce mobile power consumption because signals will not have to travel as far.