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