Design and Experimental Investigation of Conformal Compact and Low-Profile Antenna for Body Area Network Application

Abstract

Design of a conformal, low-profile, and compact metasurface (MS) backed monopole antenna operating at the medical body area network band (MBAN) is proposed in this paper. A novel blocking MS unit cell (B-UC) with dimensions of 13.8 × 13.4 × 0.5 mm³ is designed on the Roger 5880 board. A close symmetry of the proposed B-UC along the x- and y-axes results in excellent polarization stability for the normally incident transverse electric (TE) and magnetic (TM) modes. Moreover, a simple but elegant circuit model based on the surface current flow is presented for the proposed B-UC. Furthermore, an array of 3 × 3 B-UCs having dimensions of 45 × 43.6 mm2is also designed to act as a reflector and enhance the performance of a monopole antenna. Once again, the near symmetry of the proposed array results in excellent polarization stability along the x– and y–axes. Incorporating the developed MS array into the low-profile monopole antenna provides superior conformability, as demonstrated by bending it to three distinct radii of 40, 50, and 60 mm on a cylindrical platform. Finally, the proposed designs are fabricated, and the prototypes exhibit good agreement between the measured and simulated results, achieving a gain of 5.3 dBi and an efficiency of 80%.

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