Communication through Breath: Aerosol Transmission

Exhaled breath can be used in retrieving information and creating innovative communication systems. It contains several volatile organic compounds and biological entities that can act as health biomarkers. For instance, the breath of an infected human contains a nonnegligible amount of pathogenic aerosol that can spread or remain suspended in the atmosphere. Therefore, the exhaled breath can be exploited as a source's message in a communication setup to remotely scan the bio-information via an aerosol transmission channel. An overview of the basic configuration is presented along with a description of system components with a particular emphasis on channel modeling. Furthermore, the challenges that arise in theoretical analysis and system development are highlighted. Finally, several open issues are discussed to concretize the proposed communication concept.