A wearable ultra-wideband antenna for wireless body area networks

Abstract

In this article, a compact and planar wearable ultra‐wideband (UWB) antenna is designed and characterised for wireless body area network (WBAN) applications. The antenna is designed and fabricated on two different substrates: a thin and flexible high‐end RT/Duroid 5880 substrate (h = 0.381 mm) and a low‐end FR4 substrate (h = 1.6 mm) having fabricated antenna dimensions of 86 mm × 72 mm and 75 mm × 61 mm, respectively. The dimensions of the proposed design for both the substrates are calculated using the well‐known transmission‐line model. The antennas are simulated using ADS momentum and CST microwave studio for evaluation of work using two different modelling techniques. The antenna structure consists of a rectangular radiating patch with a rectangular slot and a reduced ground plane to improve the impedance matching characteristics. An offset‐feed method is employed to enhance the overall patch bandwidth. The measured −10 dB impedance bandwidth and gain with the RT/Duroid 5880 and FR4 substrates are 7.1 GHz (3.5–10.6 GHz)/4.89 dBi and 7.2 GHz (3.8–11 GHz)/2.75 dBi, respectively. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:1710–1715, 2016

Ultra‐wideband antenna for wearable Internet of Things devices and wireless body area network applications

“…A number of researchers have proposed different UWB antenna designs for WBANs and wearable applications. In some cases, although the geometry of the antenna is complicated and difficult to realize for the real‐world applications.…”

“…The textile substrates which can be used for such applications include, but not limited to, Teflon, Felt, and Nora or any other clothing materials such as fleece and denim . Moreover, flexible copper‐based substrates with a very low thickness can also be used for designing a flexible antenna. In literature, the printed microstrip patch antennas (MPAs) are found in the UWB applications, as being compact, low profile, having low manufacturing cost with the ability of conforming with the circuit boards .…”

“…A slotted ground structure is proposed in Lu et al for improving the impedance bandwidth and minimizing ground plane effects. Reduced ground planes presented in the previous studies is a widely used technique for improving impedance bandwidth in UWB antennas. In Zhu and Langley, UWB antennas having low backward radiation were presented by employing electromagnetic band gap structures and artificial magnetic conductors.…”

“…A number of UWB antenna designs exist in literature proposed by different researchers. 3,6,7,9,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] A simple UWB antenna having a rectangular slot and reduced ground plane structure was proposed in Shafique et al 9 In Bekasiewic and Koziel, 17 a compact UWB monopole antenna is presented with a microstrip-fed rectangular radiator with a reduced ground plane having a rectangular slit and an L-shaped stub. Dong et al 18 presented a printed monopole antenna having three band-notched frequencies.…”

Wearable textile bioinspired antenna for 2G, 3G, and 4G systems

“…Connections in real‐time, News technologies with instant conversations on mobile devices, the extended use of wireless network, applications in Internet of Thing to research on Smart Cities are some examples on the telecommunications advancement. Research trends in Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) have intensified with use in medical and non‐medical , , , including specific rules for the use of technology, such as IEEE 802.15.6‐2012 . The WBAN technology can be understood as a network of sensors for special purposes, designed to operate autonomously, connecting various sensors and devices located inside and outside the human body.…”