ADVANCED ULTRAWIDEBAND PATCH ANTENNA FOR WEARABLE AND WBAN APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Present communication devices are adopting an application-centric approach with the integration of electronic gadgets into wearable accessories in recent years. This paper presents a wearable antenna with a flexible textile substrate. The design comprises a low-profile, textile-based UWB (3.1-10.6 GHz) antenna of 25 × 20 × 1 mm³ size with a defected ground structure. Design antenna performance characteristics have been simulated in Computer Simulation Technology studio. It offers a gain of 4.204 dBi at 5.11 GHz frequency and 2.993 dBi at 7.39 GHz frequency using a cotton substrate with a 1.6 dielectric constant. A simulated testing of the design antenna on a human body phantom has resulted in a gain of 0.697 dBi with a return loss of -30.863dB and 1.058 VSWR at 5.3125 GHz frequency. A specific absorption rate value of 1.64 W/kg of the designed antenna for 10 g tissue shows that it is safe for the human body. The patch antenna of the paper is promising for wearable, medical imaging, tumor detection, and other wireless body area network (WBAN) biomedical applications.