Power and secure your devices as you walk

Researchers from CSIRO’s Data61 have developed technology which uses a person’s gait — ie, the way they walk — to power wearable devices. The technology also has the potential to be used as an authentication method which could replace passwords, PINs and fingerprints.

Sensors called accelerometers can currently be used to capture an individual’s gait in terms of motion and velocity; however, this reduces the battery life of wearable devices and has prevented gait authentication from becoming more widely adopted. The CSIRO researchers have overcome this by combining gait recognition with a technique called kinetic energy harvesting (KEH), which translates a person’s motion into electrical energy and improves battery life.

“By applying both techniques we have developed a way to achieve two goals at once — powering devices and the ability to verify a person’s identity using a wearable device by capturing the energy generated from the way they walk,” said Data61 researcher Sara Khalifa.

Gait authentication was tested by the researchers in a trial on 20 users, whose gaits were captured in different settings and environments to capture how it changes over time and surfaces. The trial showed that KEH-Gait can achieve an authentication accuracy of 95% and reduce energy consumption by 78%, compared to conventional accelerometer-based authentication techniques.

The system was also tested against ‘attackers’ who attempted to imitate an individual’s motions. The analysis found only 13 out of 100 imposters were wrongfully accepted by the system as genuine users.

Professor Dali Kafaar, group leader of the Networks Research Group at Data61, said there are benefits to the KEH-Gait approach compared to passwords, PINs, signatures and fingerprints.

“Firstly, it is convenient because as we walk around each day our gait can be sampled continuously and verified without us having to manually adjust anything,” Professor Kafaar said.

“Secondly, it’s more secure than passwords because the way we walk is difficult to mimic. Since the KEH-gait keeps authenticating the user continuously, it collects a significant amount of information about our movements, making it difficult to imitate or hack, unlike guessing passwords or PIN codes.”

The news comes shortly after South Korean researchers unveiled their own study into wearable electronics powered solely by the wearer’s day-to-day body motion.