Body wearable antennas for UHF/VHF

The development of antennas which can be worn on the body is of increasing interest within both the military and civil domain. Body wearable antennas present a considerable design challenge, particularly as most applications require the antenna to be unobtrusive and low-profile. The majority of recent work has concentrated on antennas for WLAN or UWB frequencies. At these frequencies the antennas are relatively small and can be made low-profile to fit on the body. It is also possible to incorporate a ground-plane (such as a PIFA or patch antenna) which significantly reduces the effect of the body on antenna performance. In this paper, antennas which operate across the 100-500 MHz band are considered. At these lower frequencies the antennas are physically larger and cannot incorporate an effective ground-plane so the effect of the body is significant. In this work it was assumed simultaneous coverage of the entire band and omnidirectional radiation patterns were required. This paper discusses the antennas considered, and those selected to meet these challenging requirements. Design of the antennas using computational electromagnetics software is presented. The development of prototype antennas is also presented, along with results of antenna pattern measurements.