Design and evaluation of a flexible dual-band meander line monopole antenna for on- and off-body healthcare applications

Ali, S. M., Sovuthy, C., Noghanian, S., Ali, Z., Abbasi, Q. H. , Imran, M. A. , Saeidi, T. and Socheatra, S. (2021) Design and evaluation of a flexible dual-band meander line monopole antenna for on- and off-body healthcare applications. Micromachines, 12(5), 475. (doi: 10.3390/mi12050475) (PMID:33922053)

Abstract

The human body is an extremely challenging environment for wearable antennas due to the complex antenna-body coupling effects. In this article, a compact flexible dual-band planar meander line monopole antenna (MMA) with a truncated ground plane made of multiple layers of standard off-the-shelf materials is evaluated to validate its performance when worn by different subjects to help the designers who are shaping future complex on-/off-body wireless devices. The antenna was fabricated, and the measured results agreed well with those from the simulations. As a reference, in free-space, the antenna provided omnidirectional radiation patterns (ORP), with a wide impedance bandwidth of 1282.4 (450.5) MHz with a maximum gain of 3.03 dBi (4.85 dBi) in the lower (upper) bands. The impedance bandwidth could reach up to 688.9 MHz (500.9 MHz) and 1261.7 MHz (524.2 MHz) with the gain of 3.80 dBi (4.67 dBi) and 3.00 dBi (4.55 dBi), respectively, on the human chest and arm. The stability in results shows that this flexible antenna is sufficiently robust against the variations introduced by the human body. A maximum measured shift of 0.5 and 100 MHz in the wide impedance matching and resonance frequency was observed in both bands, respectively, while an optimal gap between the antenna and human body was maintained. This stability of the working frequency provides robustness against various conditions including bending, movement, and relatively large fabrication tolerances.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Abbasi, Professor Qammer and Imran, Professor Muhammad
• Authors: Ali, S. M., Sovuthy, C., Noghanian, S., Ali, Z., Abbasi, Q. H., Imran, M. A., Saeidi, T., and Socheatra, S.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering; College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Systems Power and Energy
• Journal Name: Micromachines
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2072-666X
• ISSN (Online): 2072-666X
• Published Online: 22 April 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 by the authors
• First Published: First published in Micromachines
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence