Jan M. Rabaey University of California at Berkeley

THE HUMAN INTRANET

IMINDS THE CONFERENCE, OCT 23 2014

The Swarm (IoT) Vision*

Integrated components approaching molecular limits and/or may cover complete walls

Every object will have wireless connection, hence leading to trillions of connected devices

Opportunistically collaborating to present unique experiences or to fulfill common goals

[J. Rabaey, ASPDAC 2008]

[J. Bryzek, Tsensors summit 2013]

Innumerable applications in mobility, energy, environment, education, wellness, health, …

21st Century Question: “How to interact with information in a world where enriched senses and

augmented interfaces are omnipresent?”

*[BWRC 2010]

The unPad* - Mobiles to disappear or unravel!

Enabled by collaboration between environment and wearables

The Wearable Era has Come

[Wired Magazine, January 2014]

[Time Magazine, September 2014]

Wearable: An Extended Definition

Any object or tool that moves in concert with human (includes bicycle, car, drill, medical kit, or exoskeleton …)Empowered humans

in an augmented world

Wearables today – A stovepiped model!

Devices only compatible with devices of same company

Single or restricted function Limited engagement with environment

Leads to short-term, incompatible and non-scalable gadgets

[Google lens]

[Apple watch]

[Google glass]

[Fitbit]

An alternative : THE HUMAN INTRANET*

“An open scalable platform that seamlessly integrates ever-increasing number of sensor, actuation, computation, storage, communication and energy nodes located around, on, or in human body acting in symbiosis with functions provided by the body itself, fundamentally altering the ways humans operate, and interact with physical world around them and cyberworld beyond.”

(embracing original Internet vision)

*[J. Rabaey, 2014]Building on concepts such as IMEC’s Human++

The Human Intranet in a nutshell

Key properties: Distributed, formfitting and comfortable, extended operational periods, broad range of devices ranging from energy-rich to energy-starved, diverse interconnect strategies, adaptive and self-learning.

Brain-machine interfacesas an example

Some Crucial Challenges

Intertwining of energy and information distribution

• Organically formed mesh network routes energy and data from sources to sinks

• Dynamically configured based on needs and availability

• Heterogeneous physical links (wired/wireless, electromagnetic, inductive, resistive, acoustic, …)

Symbiotic to natural nervous and capillary system

Challenge: Energy sparsity

Adaptive and evolutionary systems

• Combining local information extraction and decision making with centralized global learning and optimization

• Supporting long-range and global functions such as feature extraction, sensor fusion, machine learning

• Integrating empowered hub nodes with energy-frugal local processing

B

B

A

A

B

A: HubsB: Sensor clusters

Challenge: Dynamically changing conditions

Inherently fail-safe

Challenge: Retain basic or partial functionality under all circumstances

• Implicit baselining and fall-back modes

• Redundancy in network and compute resources

• Adaptivity and reconfiguration If the system cannot restore balance, it can

lead to death! [Credit: tollecausom.com]

Homeostatis is a balancing act that can

be thrown out of whack by

environmental challenges

Human firewall

Challenge: Secure and private

• Every link to be encrypted• Keys to be generated from local

observations (channel properties, biomarkers)

• Creation of virtual cloak using deliberate self-interference

• Adaptivity to avoid spamming

High-order bits Wearables extend far beyond current

industrial/commercial offering Need open and scalable, yet safe and

reliable platform to unleash creativity Stretches technology to the limits

Required Reading: Peter Hamilton, Pandora’s Star

[OCtattoos]

10mm

Potential impact hard to overestimate Needs broader societal discussion NOW

[Flexible skin electrodes, J. Rogers, UIUC]