Ripple: Communicating through physical vibration

Nirupam Roy, Mahanth Gowda, Romit Roy Choudhury

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

64 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper investigates the possibility of communicating through vibrations. By modulating the vibration motors available in all mobile phones, and decoding them through accelerometers, we aim to communicate small packets of information. Of course, this will not match the bit rates available through RF modalities, such as NFC or Bluetooth, which utilize a much larger bandwidth. However, where security is vital, vibratory communication may offer advantages. We develop Ripple, a system that achieves up to 200 bits/s of secure transmission using off-the-shelf vibration motor chips, and 80 bits/s on Android smartphones. This is an outcome of designing and integrating a range of techniques, including multicarrier modulation, orthogonal vibration division, vibration braking, side-channel jamming, etc. Not all these techniques are novel; some are borrowed and suitably modified for our purposes, while others are unique to this relatively new platform of vibratory communication.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 12th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, NSDI 2015
PublisherUSENIX
Pages265-278
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9781931971218
StatePublished - 2015
Event12th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, NSDI 2015 - Oakland, United States
Duration: May 4 2015May 6 2015

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 12th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, NSDI 2015

Conference

Conference12th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, NSDI 2015
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityOakland
Period5/4/155/6/15

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Computer Networks and Communications

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Ripple: Communicating through physical vibration'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this