- Personal Area Network
A personal area network (PAN) is a
computer network used forcommunication amongcomputer devices (includingtelephone s andpersonal digital assistant s) close to one person. The devices may or may not belong to the person in question. The reach of a PAN is typically a few meters. PANs can be used for communication among the personal devices themselves (intrapersonal communication), or for connecting to a higher level network and theInternet (anuplink ).Personal area networks may be wired with
computer bus es such as USB andFireWire . Awireless personal area network (WPAN) can also be made possible with network technologies such as IrDA,Bluetooth , UWB,Z-Wave andZigBee .Technology
Original research|date=September 2007A
Bluetooth PAN is also called a "piconet ", and is composed of up to 8 active devices in a master-slave relationship (a very large number of devices can be connected in "parked" mode). The first Bluetooth device in the piconet is the master, and all other devices are slaves that communicate with the master. A piconet typically has a range of 10 meters, although ranges of up to 100 meters can be reached under ideal circumstances.Recent innovations in Bluetooth antennas have allowed these devices to greatly exceed the range for which they were originally designed. At
DEF CON 12, a group of hackers known as "Flexilis" successfully connected two Bluetooth devices more than half a mile (800 m) away. They used an antenna with a scope andYagi antenna , all attached to a rifle stock. A cable attached the antenna to a Bluetooth card in a computer. They later named the antenna "The BlueSniper."[http://www.skinplex.net Skinplex] , another PAN technology, transmits via the capacitive near field of human skin. Skinplex can detect and communicate up to one meter from a human body. It is already used for access control for door locks and jamming protection in convertible car roofs.
See also
*
Ambient network s
*Bluetooth
*Skinplex
*IEEE 802.15
*Internalnet
*i-wear
*Ultra-wideband andFM-UWB networks
*Z-Wave
*ZigBee
*6lowpan External links
* [http://www.media.mit.edu/physics/projects/pan/pan.html Intrabody Signalling] by
Tom Zimmerman andNeil Gershenfeld
** [http://web.archive.org/web/20050326090709/www.media.mit.edu/physics/projects/pan/pan.html Archived version with working downloads]
* [http://telecom.inescporto.pt/~rcampos/index.php ASPAN] - Next Generation Personal Area Networks
* [http://personal-area-network.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=36&Itemid=52&lang=en smartnfc.com] - Intra Body Communication and Personal Area Networks
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