Development of U-Shape Slot Wearable Antenna for In-Body Communications

Abstract

The ability to have a communication with devices implanted inside a human body will cause a great improvement in current wireless medical applications technology. Wireless Capsule Endoscopy (WCE) is a medical device that could send images from inside of human’s intestines to the sensor outside the body. However, this device has few disadvantages like its location cannot be detected once it entered the body and it also cannot be control from outside the body. Considering these factors, an antenna that has the ability to penetrate into human body tissues for in-body communication is proposed. UWB system has considered as the solution for future in-body communication devices since current standard does not allow high data rate wireless connections between implanted nodes. Low part of UWB frequency band which is 3.1 GHz to 5.0 GHz is used in this research in order to reduce the attenuation through the body tissues as the frequency increase. The design of this antenna has taken in consideration of the propagation medium which is the human body tissues. Simulation for the designed antenna was done in CST Software. The size of this antenna is designed to be compact and wearable on human body. The substrate used for this antenna is cotton to ensure comfort once it is placed on the human body. The results that are considered in this research are the S11, directivity and gain of the antenna. Both simulation results and measured results are compared to evaluate the ability of this antenna.