Design of Wearable Patch antenna for wireless body area networks

Abstract

Wireless body area networks are being widely used due to the increase in the use of wireless networks and various electrical devices. A Wearable Patch antenna is used for enhancement of various applications for WBAN. In this paper, a low profile wearable microstrip patch antenna is designed and suggested for constant observation of human vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse rate and body temperature using wireless body area network (WBAN) technology. The operating frequency of the antenna is taken as 2.45 GHz which lies in industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) frequency band. Polyester textile fabric with a relative permittivity of 1.44 and thickness of 2.85 mm is used as a substrate material. The proposed antenna is designed to achieve better return loss, VSWR, gain and low value of specific absorption rate (SAR) as compare to other existing wearable antenna. The achieved antenna return loss at 2.45 GHz is about -10.52 dB and gain of 7.81 dB. The VSWR value achieved at 2.45 GHz is 1.84, which is good in terms of good impedance matching. Other antenna field parameters like 2D and 3D gain, radiation pattern, and SAR value have been calculated. High-Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) is used to design and simulate the proposed antenna.