Design of a Novel Compact MICS Band PIFA Antenna for Implantable Biotelemetry Applications

Abstract

An implantable stacked planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) for biotelemetric communication in the 402–405 MHz Medical Implant Communications Service (MICS) frequency band is designed and fabricated. With the proposed PIFA structure, a slot on each radiating patch was embedded, resulting in a size reduction of 0.013 λ and a compact size of 10 × 10 × 1.905 mm3. Both in vitro and in vivo experiments verified the simulation performance with characteristics of −10 dB bandwidth of 29 MHz, radiation efficiency of 0.9%, and a maximum far-field gain of −18.8 dB. We calculated the safety power delivered to the antenna using the specific absorption rate (SAR) limitation standard. Compared to other implantable antennas for biotelemetry, this antenna performs comparably and has a smaller size. This design would further develop implantable medical devices that communicate in the MICS band.