A wearable ultra-wideband antenna for wireless body area networks

ABSTRACT In this article, a compact and planar wearable ultra‐wideband (UWB) antenna is designed and characterised for wireless body area network (WBAN) applications. The antenna is designed and fabricated on two different substrates: a thin and flexible high‐end RT/Duroid 5880 substrate (h = 0.381 mm) and a low‐end FR4 substrate (h = 1.6 mm) having fabricated antenna dimensions of 86 mm × 72 mm and 75 mm × 61 mm, respectively. The dimensions of the proposed design for both the substrates are calculated using the well‐known transmission‐line model. The antennas are simulated using ADS momentum and CST microwave studio for evaluation of work using two different modelling techniques. The antenna structure consists of a rectangular radiating patch with a rectangular slot and a reduced ground plane to improve the impedance matching characteristics. An offset‐feed method is employed to enhance the overall patch bandwidth. The measured −10 dB impedance bandwidth and gain with the RT/Duroid 5880 and FR4 substrates are 7.1 GHz (3.5–10.6 GHz)/4.89 dBi and 7.2 GHz (3.8–11 GHz)/2.75 dBi, respectively. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:1710–1715, 2016