Signal Atlas

Research library

Body networks & biosensing

Wearables, ingestibles and implants that measure the body and pass data on. What 6G adds: huge numbers of tiny, low-power devices connected at once.

Of 38 findings in this theme, 21 are real today, 11 designed, 2 forecast and 4 disputed.

Real today 21

  • Body-area network standard updated in 2026. IEEE's standard for wireless networks on and inside the body was revised in 2026, raising data rates from 10 to 50 Mbit/s and adding networks inside vehicles. It covers very low power use and limiting radio energy absorbed by the body.
  • Body-area networks already have rules and radio bands. Wearables and implants that talk to each other around the body follow the IEEE 802.15.6 body-area network standard, and the U.S. FCC set aside radio bands for medical body networks (2012) and implanted devices (MedRadio).
  • Body-area networks organise devices around one person. A body-area network links on-body, in-body and near-body sensor or actuator nodes to a coordinator and a gateway such as a phone or bedside hub. It can run fully local, upload in bursts, or stay continuously connected.
  • Canada already certifies radio links for implants. Canada's radio regulator has a certification standard for active medical implants and body-worn sensors that talk in the 401-406 MHz band, the same band used for implant telemetry elsewhere.
  • Cells use voltage patterns to steer growth and healing. Every cell holds a small voltage, and patterns of these voltages help guide development, wound healing and regeneration; bioelectronic medicine uses small currents to influence cells.
  • Frequencies above 6 GHz are already common. Health Canada notes that frequencies above 6 GHz were in use long before 5G, for police radar, medical technology and airport security screening.
  • Grain-sized wireless implants work in animals. Berkeley engineers built millimetre-scale implants powered and read by ultrasound that can record nerve signals and stimulate nerves, tested in rodents.
  • Heart and brain signals are shared research data. Since 1999 the NIH-funded PhysioNet has shared recordings such as ECGs and intensive-care data for research; some sets are open, others need training and a signed data use agreement. Using body signals as security keys is still studied as research.
  • Heating is the only established effect. ICNIRP, Health Canada and WHO all say the established way radio energy affects the body above about 100 kHz is heating (plus nerve stimulation at low frequencies). Below the thresholds that cause heating, research has not substantiated harm.
  • Higher bands stop in the outer skin. The higher the frequency, the shallower the energy goes. ICNIRP says 86% of the power is absorbed within about 8 mm of the surface at 6 GHz, but within 0.2 mm at 300 GHz. At terahertz frequencies water in skin absorbs it within roughly 0.3 mm.
  • IEEE 802.15 standards: what each number covers. IEEE 802.15.6 (2012) is the body-area-network standard, and a 2018 review says its third physical layer is Human Body Communication. 802.15.4 is a low-rate personal-area standard and 802.15.5 is mesh networking, so the numbers are not interchangeable with Bluetooth Low Energy.
  • Invisible quantum-dot ink tested to record vaccinations. Researchers in 2019 showed that near-infrared quantum dots delivered by dissolving microneedles could leave an invisible, phone-readable vaccination record in the skin of animals. It was a proposal for records in low-resource settings.
  • New sensors read blood cells and infections. Research prototypes include an MIT wearable that tracks individual cells flowing in the bloodstream (2025) and engineered bacteria that give off an electrical signal when they detect a target.
  • Skin and cornea are the tissues that matter. Above 6 GHz, safety rules switch from measuring absorption deep in the body to measuring power absorbed at the surface, because skin and the cornea of the eye take nearly all of it. For far-infrared and THz light, ICNIRP notes the eye's front surface absorbs it because of its water.
  • Smart prosthetic hands learn together with their wearer. Advanced prosthetic hands can sense, connect to the wearer's nervous system and make local decisions such as grip pressure. Both the person and the device now learn, so a well-used hand becomes tuned to one wearer.
  • Swallowed pill sensors report to patient and clinicians. FDA approved a tablet with a built-in sensor in 2017. It signals a worn patch and phone app, and the prescriber can see the record through a portal.
  • THz waves are far too weak to ionize. Radio waves, microwaves and terahertz waves are non-ionizing: each packet of energy is too small to knock electrons off atoms or break chemical bonds. Terahertz photons carry about 0.3-10 thousandths of an electronvolt, far below what ionization needs.
  • The body gives off four kinds of measurable signals. Bodies produce electrical, mechanical, chemical and optical signals that sensors can pick up. A reading travels through seven steps (event, sensor, sampling, communication, record, interpretation, action) and each step can lose or distort information.
  • WHO-commissioned reviews: no rise in brain cancer. WHO commissioned about a dozen systematic reviews (2023-2025). Human studies found no increased brain cancer risk from mobile phones (moderate certainty), no effect on cognition, and blinded tests showed people could not detect fields or develop symptoms from them.
  • Wearable health sensors were booming by 2014. A 2014 industry survey catalogued smart shirts, baby-sleep socks, phone ECG monitors, cuffless blood-pressure devices, smart pills and breath analysers as the first wave of personal health sensing.
  • Your body can carry data between devices. Engineers have shown that skin and tissue can act as a data channel, using tiny electric or magnetic signals so a watch, patch and implant can exchange data through the body with less power than ordinary radio.

Designed, not deployed 11

  • A satellite-linked body network has only been proposed. Researchers have explored linking body-area networks of health sensors to satellites since at least 2009, including an experimental prototype and a 2014 emergency-telemedicine architecture. A routine, deployed satellite-linked body-network service has not been shown.
  • ARPA-H launches a low-cost biosensor programme (March 2026). ARPA-H announced a 4.5-year programme to make cheaper, modular biosensors that could be worn or swallowed for continuous monitoring of hormones and inflammation markers.
  • Biofield is described as an emerging concept. A 2015 journal supplement describes the 'biofield' as a proposed organising field in living systems and calls the science emerging. It frames the idea as needing more research, not as settled.
  • Early 6G visions list an 'Internet of Bodies'. A 2019 IEEE paper sketching what 6G should do lists support for the 'Internet of Bodies': wearables plus tiny, ultra-low-power implanted sensors that talk inside the body. It also names humans among the things a 6G network would sense.
  • Gateways, not nanodevices, hold the real control. In the proposed Internet of Nano-Things, nanodevices cannot reach the internet themselves; their data passes through nanorouters and a gateway, such as a smartphone, before reaching online services. On this site's reading, that makes the gateway the point that controls what leaves and what commands enter.
  • Health sensors must shrink and solve power and security. Healthcare 4.0 needs sensors that are tiny, comfortable, networked and long-lasting, in clothes, homes or on the body, including neural recording and stimulation devices. Open problems include fusing data, biocompatibility, power and energy harvesting, and encrypting what they send.
  • In-body THz nanonetworks exist only as models. Engineers have modelled how tiny devices inside the body might talk over terahertz links, accounting for heavy absorption by tissue. These are channel models and simulations for future medical devices.
  • Networks of nanomachines inside the body, on paper. A 2018 paper proposes how swarms of nano-sized devices could network inside the body for drug delivery or tumour detection, using terahertz radio over sub-metre distances and handing hard computing to outside gateways. An IEEE standard (1906.1.1) already defines a data model for nanoscale communication.
  • Terahertz imaging is a medical research tool. Researchers use THz waves to tell cancerous from healthy tissue by water content, for example tumour margins in breast surgery, and to measure corneal hydration. Water absorption limits it to surfaces or removed tissue; a 2021 rabbit study found long THz eye scans caused no damage or heating.
  • Terahertz links: huge capacity, under one metre. The nanonetwork paper focuses on terahertz radio, which models suggest could carry very high data rates but only over very short distances, often below a metre. Molecules in the air or tissue absorb the signal and add noise, so usable range depends on the medium.
  • Worn, swallowed or implanted devices carry different risks. Wearables, ingestible capsules and implants exist today, but where a device sits changes what it can measure, how much power it has, whether it can be removed and how serious a failure is. Worn devices are easy to remove but noisier; implants are more stable but harder to exit.

Forecast 2

  • Wearables may give most benefits without implants. Isaac Arthur expects wearables (watches, earbuds, AR glasses, health monitors, powered clothing, exoskeletons) to be among the biggest life changers, warning of heart attacks early and calling help. He suggests implants may never be needed if wearables get close enough.
  • Worn and implanted devices will talk through body networks. The IEEE paper expects wearables and implants such as insulin pumps to start talking to each other over body area networks, later forming local decision points that first improve well-being and then performance. A cited EIT Digital vision says IoT will be part of the body and artificial organs normal in the 2020s.

Disputed 4

  • IARC: radio waves 'possibly' carcinogenic since 2011. In 2011 WHO's cancer agency IARC put radiofrequency fields in Group 2B, 'possibly carcinogenic', based on limited evidence linking heavy phone use with glioma and acoustic neuroma. IARC says the label reflects strength of evidence, not size of risk. An advisory group in 2024 recommended re-evaluating RF as a high priority for 2025-2029.
  • Low-level millimetre-wave effects: reported, not confirmed. A 2021 review of 107 lab studies above 6 GHz found reported effects were mostly not repeated and most studies measured dose and temperature poorly; 31 studies of radar workers showed little evidence of disease. A companion meta-analysis found effects shrank as study quality rose and did not grow with exposure.
  • Rat cancer findings remain disputed. The WHO-commissioned animal review reported higher-certainty increases in two tumour types in male rats under heavy exposure. Germany's radiation protection office judged that evidence distinctly weaker, and other experts have criticised the findings.
  • Terahertz biology: few, hard-to-repeat studies. Reviews of terahertz effects on cells say knowledge is limited, setups are rare and protocols differ, so results often clash between labs. A 2024 meta-analysis of 13 studies found THz can change gene activity in cells but no consistent gene pattern; a careful 2.3 THz stem-cell study found no DNA damage.

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