Design of flexible dual‐band antenna and metamaterial structure for wearable body area network

Abstract

To adapt to the application of wireless body area network (WBAN), a wearable flexible dual-band antenna is developed, which has a compact size of 17 Â 29 Â 0.15 mm 3 and a better bandwidth of 61.2% and 43.1% at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz, respectively. The dual-band characteristic is achieved by slotting technique without changing the contour size. A dual-band metamaterial structure (MS) is designed to improve radiation performance and reduce the specific absorption rate (SAR) of the proposed antenna. To verify the validity of the MS, we build two simulation human models. The forward gain of the antenna is increased and the SAR is significantly decreased when adding the MS between antenna and human skin. The antenna is designed and fabricated on a flexible substrate, and its performance is verified for both flat and curved configurations. To examine its performance as a wearable antenna, it is measured on a human body. The measurements show an excellent agreement with the simulations. Good performances of designed antenna make it potential to application of the miniaturized wearable devices.

Textile Antenna with Dual Bands and SAR Measurements for Wearable Communication

“…The USA and EUROPE standards were used to judge the amount of the SAR levels. For the optimal design of wearable antennas, the SAR must remain below the established standards, such as the USA standard set by FCC at 1.6 W/kg and the EUROPE standard established by ICNIPR at 2 W/kg [22]. The voxelized human model was employed to replicate the human body in simulations.…”

“…The integration of dual wideband antennas brings forth a multitude of benefits, including enhanced frequency coverage, support for multi-modal sensing, improved reliability, and compatibility with emerging technologies. These antennas play a crucial role in remote patient monitoring and the evolution of personalized healthcare, heralding the development of innovative and effective medical devices [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. In specific studies such as [16,17], flexible antennas designed for body-centric and WLAN applications utilize substrates like nitrile butadiene rubber and felt, with thicknesses ranging from 4.6 mm to 5 mm.…”

“…Conversely, Refs. [21,22] introduce antennas employing cellulose laurate and polyimide substrates, conducting thorough bending analyses and achieving commendable gains. However, these designs exhibit narrower bandwidths, with [21] highlighting the necessity for higher bandwidth designs to cater to a broader range of applications.…”

A Low SAR High Isolation Fully Flexible MIMO Antenna Integrated with AMC Array

“…The permittivity and thickness of the substrate play a significant role in determining the bandwidth and efficiency of a planar microstrip antenna [3]. Due to the development of wearable antennas, the research on patch antennas has mostly focused on flexible materials [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. At present, wearable antennas extensively use various textile materials as the substrate, including felt [4,8,10,14], jeans [9,11], and some other flexible materials like leather [13].…”

“…Wearable antennas are a hot spot for current researchers. The antenna performances of high gain and low specific absorption ratio (SAR) are important evaluation metrics, and the metamaterial structure is used to improve the antenna performances [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Wearable antennas can be applied to healthcare fields, such as brainwave meter, electrocardiogram monitor, and defibrillator.…”