A Wideband Dual-Polarized Ring-Loaded Cross Bowtie Antenna for Wireless Capsule Endoscopes: Design and Link Analysis

Abstract

This work presents a novel on- body wideband dual-polarized antenna to stabilize and enhance the link performance of wireless capsule endoscopy systems. By introducing a cross-bowtie structure with a planar compact feed method, the antenna achieves a dual-polarized performance with high port-to-port isolation. A loaded ring with additional stubs is also implemented to further enhance the bandwidth and provide a flat in-band performance from 381 to 990 MHz. The proposed antenna is measured with both homogeneous phantom and ex vivo test to validate the impedance matching performance. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed on- body antenna on the communication link, a capsule helical antenna with omnidirectional radiation pattern is designed and measured. Finally, comprehensive link studies are conducted considering the varied capsule orientations and locations, with a peak <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\vert S_{21}\vert $ </tex-math></inline-formula> value of–25.5 dB at the 60 mm implant depth and an acceptable link loss due to the capsule position error. The proposed on- body antenna can be regarded as a good candidate for a practical capsule endoscopy system due to its stable and enhanced transmission performance when compared with its counterparts.