ESL student paper comes in second at international conference
Connor Jenkins, 2nd year PhD student at the ElectroScience Laboratory (ESL), received second place in the Ernest K. Smith USNC-URSI Student Paper Competition at the National Radio Science Meeting.
National Radio Science Meeting is an open scientific meeting sponsored by the U.S. National Committee (USNC) for the International Union of Radio Science (IURS). The USNC-URSI is appointed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and represents U.S. radio scientists in URSI. Jenkins presented the paper at the National Radio Science Meeting in Boulder, Colorado. Even after having to unexpectedly present virtually, he finished in second and won a prize of $750.
His paper, "Dual-Layer Magnetoinductive Waveguide for Wearable Wireless Body Area Networks", introduces the first wearable magnetoinductive waveguide (MIW) for Wireless Body Area Networks that can tolerate mechanical failures and clothing transitions. The waveguide design enables robust, secure and unobtrusive communication across the human body for various applications.
MIWs placed in a planar way upon the human body are most promising but suffer from a large deterioration in minimum loss and operating bandwidth under mechanical failures and clothing transitions. In this work, the authors overcome both limitations via a novel dual-layer planar MIW design that uses two layers of resonant loops stacked upon each other. The paper also presents a 60-70 dB improvement in path loss over state-of-the-art Wireless Body Area Network technology.
Jenkins is a member of the Wearable and Implantable Technologies (WIT) Group at ESL and advised by Professor Asimina Kiourti.
“This is a very well-deserved recognition for Connor,” said Asimina Kiourti. “He has worked really hard on his magnetoinductive waveguide research over the last two years.”
The WIT Group carries out interdisciplinary research at the intersection of electromagnetics, sensors, and medicine. They develop wearables and implants that outperform the existing devices in terms of seamlessness, capabilities and performance.
