Compact Flexible Planar Antennas for Biomedical Applications: Insight into Materials and Systems Design

Abstract

Planar antennas have become an integral component in modern biomedical instruments owing to their compact structure, cost effectiveness, and light weight. These antennas are crucial in realizing medical systems such as body area networks, remote health monitoring, and microwave imaging systems. Antennas intended for the above applications should be conformal and fabricated using lightweight materials that are suitable for wear on the human body. Wearable antennas are intended to be placed on the human body to examine its health conditions. Hence, the performance of the antenna, such as its radiation characteristics across the operating frequency bands, should not be affected by human body proximity. This is achieved by selecting appropriate conformal materials whose characteristics remain stable under all environmental conditions. This paper aims to highlight the effects of human body proximity on wearable antenna performance. Additionally, this paper reviews the various types of flexible antennas proposed for biomedical applications. It describes the challenges in designing wearable antennas, the selection of a flexible material that is suitable for fabricating wearable antennas, and the relevant methods of fabrication. This paper also highlights the future directions in this rapidly growing field. Flexible antennas are the keystone for implementing next-generation wireless communication devices for health monitoring and health safety applications.

Innovative synthesis technique for high-performance dielectric resonator antennas: laser-induced shockwave sintering of potassium sodium niobate (KNN)

“…A higher dielectric constant generally leads to a smaller antenna size for a given resonant frequency. A lower loss tangent is desirable for antenna applications, as it reduces the signal loss and improves the antenna efficiency [31]. Therefore, LISWS-3 is the most promising candidate for miniaturized and high-efficiency antennas among the 3 LISWS samples.…”