The evidence and outlook behind FAT-IBC
Our Innovation Pipeline page describes the body-centric ecosystem MMG is building: sensors that generate clinical data, an in-body communication layer that moves it, and bionics that act on it. This page is the evidence underneath that vision, the peer-reviewed science it rests on, how that direction lines up with where the wider health-technology industry is already heading, and the EU regulatory shift that will apply to it.
Robin Augustine, PhD, is CTO and Chairman of Probingon AB and associate professor in medical engineering at Uppsala University. He is the author of over 250 peer-reviewed publications and holds five patents. ORCID · Uppsala University profile · DiVA publication record
Why this matters
MMG’s own view of the body-centric ecosystem is set out on the Innovation Pipeline page. The questions below ground that vision in what is already happening across the wider health-technology industry, written for anyone encountering this for the first time.
Why can’t a smartwatch or ring do everything a doctor needs to monitor?
A smartwatch reads your body from the outside, through your skin, using light or small sensors. That works well for heart rate, sleep, or blood oxygen. But some medical conditions are treated with a device implanted inside the body, such as a spinal cord stimulator for chronic pain or a deep brain stimulator for Parkinson’s disease. For these implants to work better, the part that senses what the body is doing and the part that delivers therapy often need to talk to each other in real time, from inside the body. No watch on your wrist can do that. It isn’t a better sensor that’s missing, it’s a way for two things inside the body to communicate with each other.
What is a “body area network,” in plain terms?
Right now, most health wearables work like this: your watch collects data, then sends it to an app on your phone. That’s one device talking to one phone. A body area network is different, it’s a group of sensors and devices, some worn and some implanted, that can all talk directly to each other, not just to a phone. As more chronic conditions are treated with implanted devices, those devices need to become part of that network instead of working alone.
Why does it look like this is where healthcare is heading?
A few things are already happening that point this way. Regulators are starting to treat consumer devices more like medical ones: in 2025, the fitness company WHOOP received official clearance to offer a heart-rhythm reading feature, and the glucose monitor maker Dexcom got similar clearance for a new continuous blood sugar sensor. In January 2026, the US Food and Drug Administration updated its rules specifically because the line between “wellness gadget” and “medical device” had become too blurry to enforce as before. On top of that, health insurers already pay doctors specifically for monitoring patients remotely and continuously, through dedicated billing codes. Put together: consumer devices are already collecting near-medical-grade data, and there’s already a way to get paid for using that data to catch problems early. The missing piece is connecting that world to the world of implanted medical devices, which today mostly can’t participate in it.
So what does FAT-IBC actually do in this picture?
FAT-IBC is not a wearable and it doesn’t compete with a smartwatch or ring. It solves the specific problem described above: letting devices inside the body communicate with each other, and with a device worn outside the body, without needing a radio signal that has to be beamed through tissue. It works by sending a signal through the body’s own fat layer, which conducts it efficiently over short distances, instead of broadcasting it outward the way Bluetooth or wifi does. That means less power used, and no requirement for the sending and receiving parts of an implant to be right next to each other, which is a real design constraint today.
Why should any of this reduce healthcare costs?
Most serious health costs come from problems caught late, a stroke, a seizure, a device issue not noticed until symptoms are severe. Continuous monitoring catches warning signs earlier, before an emergency happens, which is generally cheaper to treat and better for the patient. That’s already the logic insurers use to pay for remote monitoring of wearables today. Extending the same continuous, early-warning approach to implanted devices, which currently can’t easily report what’s happening inside the body in real time, is where the next round of savings is expected to come from.
B-CRATOS (2021-2025), an EU Horizon 2020 FET-Open programme, funded the core experimental validation of FAT-IBC, coordinated by Uppsala University, advancing the technology to TRL 6 and producing the majority of the FAT-IBC publications below. TRL 1-4 is concept and lab validation at MMG. TRL 5-6 is system validation, including in vivo testing, at the MMG to Probingon handoff. TRL 7-9 is OEM integration at Probingon.
Publications
15 publications curated for topical relevance, out of a body of work exceeding 250. The full record, including MMG work in tissue engineering, materials science and medical imaging outside this scope, is maintained on Robin Augustine’s official Uppsala University and ORCID profiles linked above.
Track 1 — FAT-IBC. The core communication architecture. Ordered chronologically, this is the documented TRL progression from channel physics to human and torso-phantom validation.
2017 — Intra-body microwave communication through adipose tissue
Asan, N. B.; Noreland, D.; Hassan, E.; Redzwan, S.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — Healthcare Technology Letters. Early foundational demonstration that adipose tissue can carry a microwave communication signal through the body, establishing the physical basis of FAT-IBC. TRL 3. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
2018 — Characterization of the fat channel for intra-body communication at R-band frequencies
Asan, N. B.; Hassan, E.; Velander, J.; Redzwan, S.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — Sensors (MDPI). Systematic channel characterisation at R-band frequencies, establishing propagation loss figures used in later FAT-IBC link budget design. TRL 4. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
2021 — Fat-IntraBody communication at 5.8 GHz: verification of dynamic body movement effects
Asan, N. B.; Hassan, E.; Perez, M. D.; Joseph, L.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — IEEE Access. Simulation and experimental verification that link performance is robust to body movement, a key reliability question for wearable and implant use. TRL 4. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
2022 — End-to-end transmission of physiological data from implanted devices to a cloud-enabled aggregator using FAT-IBC in a live porcine model
Engstrand, J.; Perez, M. D.; Mandal, B.; Lidén, J.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — EuCAP 2022. In vivo validation in a live animal model, demonstrating end-to-end transmission from an implanted device to a cloud-connected aggregator. TRL 5, in vivo. DOI ↗
2023 — Realization of a portable semi-shielded chamber for evaluation of fat-intrabody communication
Rangaiah, P.; Karlsson, R. L.; Chezhian, A. S.; Joseph, L.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — IEEE Access. A repeatable, portable test environment for evaluating FAT-IBC link performance, supporting standardised system-level characterisation. TRL 5. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
2024 — 92 Mb/s fat-intrabody communication (Fat-IBC) with low-cost WLAN hardware
Rangaiah, P.; Engstrand, J.; Johansson, T.; Perez, M. D.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. Demonstration of 92 Mb/s data throughput over a FAT-IBC link using commodity WLAN hardware, the flagship data-rate milestone for commercial viability. TRL 5-6. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
2024 — Security and privacy for fat intra-body communication: mechanisms and protocol stack
Engstrand, J.; Krentz, K.-F.; Asan, N. B.; Padmal, M.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN). Defines a protocol stack and security mechanisms for FAT-IBC networks, supporting the distributed multi-node architecture behind the body-centric ecosystem. TRL 5. DOI ↗
2025 — High-speed intra-body communication system through fat tissue using wearable antennas for health monitoring
Shaw, T.; Mandal, B.; Engstrand, J.; Karlsson, R. L.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. A wearable antenna-based FAT-IBC system delivering higher-speed data transfer for continuous health monitoring, extending the architecture from implant to wearable use cases. TRL 6. DOI ↗
2026 — Fat-intra-body communication system using flexible wearable antennas with human and torso phantom validation for biomedical applications
Mandal, B.; Shaw, T.; Rangaiah, P.; Joseph, L.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — Scientific Reports, Nature Portfolio. Validation of a flexible wearable FAT-IBC antenna system on both human subjects and an anthropomorphic torso phantom, the most recent milestone in the FAT-IBC record. TRL 6. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
Track 2 — dielectric and microwave sensing. The sensing platform adjacent to FAT-IBC, the same dielectric measurement toolkit, applied to non-invasive tissue diagnostics rather than communication.
2021 — MAS: standalone microwave resonator to assess muscle quality
Mattsson, V.; Ackermans, L. L. G. C.; Mandal, B.; Perez, M. D.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — Sensors (MDPI). A standalone microwave resonator sensor for non-invasive muscle quality assessment, sharing MMG’s dielectric sensing platform with FAT-IBC. TRL 4. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
2023 — Dielectric characterization and statistical analysis of ex-vivo burnt human skin samples for microwave sensor development
Rangaiah, P.; Kouki, M.; Dhouibi, Y.; Huss, F.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — IEEE Access. Dielectric property mapping of burnt human skin, underpinning microwave sensor calibration for non-invasive burn severity diagnosis. TRL 3-4. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
2024 — Machine learning powered microwave device for local body composition assessment
Mattsson, V.; Perez, M. D.; Ackermans, L. L. G. C.; Meaney, P.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — IEEE Sensors Journal. Combines a microwave sensing hardware platform with a machine-learning model to assess local body composition non-invasively. TRL 4-5. DOI ↗
Track 3 — bionics and implantable systems. Supporting technology for the implant side of the ecosystem: power delivery and safety for the devices FAT-IBC connects.
2022 — A novel SAR reduction technique for implantable antenna using conformal absorber metasurface
Das, S.; Mitra, D.; Chezhian, A. S.; Mandal, B.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — Frontiers in Medical Technology. A metasurface-based absorber technique reducing specific absorption rate for implantable antennas, addressing implant-side safety requirements. TRL 3-4. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
2024 — Metamaterial integrated highly efficient wireless power transfer system for implantable medical devices
Shaw, T.; Mandal, B.; Mitra, D.; Rangaiah, P. K. B.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — AEU, International Journal of Electronics and Communications. A metamaterial-based wireless power transfer design for implantable devices, addressing power delivery for the neuromodulation implant class in this ecosystem. TRL 4. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
2024 — Rotation insensitive implantable wireless power transfer system using metamaterial-polarization converter
Shaw, T.; Mandal, B.; Samanta, G.; Voigt, T.; et al., incl. Augustine, R. — Scientific Reports, Nature Portfolio. A polarization-converting metamaterial design that makes implant wireless power transfer robust to the implant’s rotational orientation in the body. TRL 4-5. DOI ↗ · Open access PDF ↗
Regulatory outlook
The evidence above matters for more than scientific credibility. Europe is in the middle of changing how this kind of evidence gets used to decide what reaches patients.
Is Europe also changing how it evaluates new health technologies?
Yes, and it’s a significant structural shift. Since January 2025, the EU has been phasing in a new regulation called the Health Technology Assessment Regulation, or Regulation (EU) 2021/2282. Before this, each of the 27 EU countries separately reviewed the same clinical evidence for a new medicine or device, on its own timeline, often reaching different conclusions. Under the new system, a single joint clinical assessment is produced once at EU level, and every country’s own reimbursement decision then draws on that same shared assessment.
Has this new EU system actually been used yet, or is it still on paper?
It’s real and already running. On 9 June 2026, the European Commission published the very first Joint Clinical Assessment report completed under this framework, for a childhood brain cancer medicine called tovorafenib. It’s a genuine milestone, the first time any health technology has gone through this new EU-wide process from start to finish. The published report runs to over 150 pages of detailed, methodical comparison against existing treatments, endorsed by assessors from every EU member state together rather than 27 separate national reviews.
Does this apply to medical devices too, or only medicines?
It’s built to apply to both, on a phased schedule. Medicines started first, cancer drugs and certain advanced therapies from January 2025. Medical devices are explicitly part of the same law, and the European Commission already published, in October 2025, the specific procedural rules for running this same joint assessment process on medical devices, focusing on the higher-risk categories, Class IIb and Class III under EU device rules. The first group of devices is expected to be selected for this process during 2026. Implantable neurostimulators sit in that highest-risk Class III category, so this isn’t a distant hypothetical, it’s a visible, dated trajectory.
Why does this matter for this research specifically?
Because the publication record above, a documented, peer-reviewed, journal-published evidence trail at every TRL stage, is exactly the currency the new EU system is built to reward. A device developer who can point to an existing, independently published evidence base going into a future joint assessment starts from a materially stronger position than one who has to generate it from scratch under regulatory time pressure. Publishing this validation record in indexed, peer-reviewed literature, rather than keeping it as internal test reports, was already the right call before this regulation existed. This makes it a better one.
For a full explanation of how FAT-IBC works and where it sits in the broader body-centric ecosystem, see the Innovation Pipeline page.
Considering FAT-IBC for your platform? Technical briefs and OEM integration documentation are available under NDA. Get in touch →