Flexible compact system for wearable health monitoring applications

Abstract

In this modern world, the need for compact, lightweight, and flexible devices to modernize and monitor the health in busy day-to-day life is increasing drastically. In connection to this, a flexible and compact antenna using a flexible PDMS substrate is proposed in this research with high radiation efficiency and gain. These antennas can be integrated with wearable sensors to continuously keep track the health and send data remotely. The flexible antenna comprises a rectangular patch embedded in a flexible PDMS substrate. The flexible PDMS substrate has high thermal stability, high tensile strength, and low permeability to oxygen and water vapor which will increase the lifetime and stability of the antenna. The flexible antenna for Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band of 2.45 GHz is designed and analyzed by performing a comprehensive parametric study. The performance of the flexible antenna was evaluated in terms of return loss, radiation pattern polar plots, gain, and VSWR. The fabricated antenna has a return loss of -23.34 dB at a center frequency of 2.45 GHz. The fabricated antenna is omnidirectional, which covers a broad range in both E-plane and H-plane. The advantages such as lightweight, low cost, high stability and flexible nature of this antenna will have potential applications in biomedical, military, and defense applications.