Design of CPW fed multiband antenna for wearable wireless body area network applications

Abstract

This communication presents a multiband on-body conformal and wearable antenna for Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) applications. The suggested wearable CPW-fed slot dipole antenna is incorporated with inductively coupled meander shape, T and O shaped resonators that lead to provide multiband operation. The resonant frequency is controlled by a definite resonant path, which leads to high degree of freedom in design paradigm. The proposed wearable antenna covers the 2.4 GHz/5.2 GHz/5.8 GHz WLAN, 3.5 GHz WiMAX, and 4.4 GHz C-bands and has an overall dimension of 60 × 40 × 0.254 mm3. The SAR analysis has also been presented for the antenna at several resonant frequencies which are well under the normal SAR criteria of 1.6 W/kg that suggests that the model performs satisfactorily for wearable applications. To characterize the performance of the antenna, the specimen of the antenna is rigorously tested in terms of antenna gain, S-parameters and flexibility under different bending configurations for radii values ranging from 90 to 30 mm. The reflection coefficient of the suggested antenna is also evaluated and the outcomes are compared under distinct on-body circumstances. Measured and simulated results of S11, radiation pattern and gain are in good agreement.