Novel miniature wearable microstrip antennas for ISM-band biomedical telemetry

This paper presents two innovative designs of miniature wearable microstrip antennas for biotelemetry in the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band (2.4-2.48GHz). The two proposed designs employ stacked triangular guiding patches as well as slotting of the patches. This results in a considerable size reduction of 60% with respect to the original antenna volume. Both designs have dimensions of of 39 × 39 × 2.1 mm³. Simulations of the two proposed designs have been carried out using HFSS for S-parameters, Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), and E-field distribution, on an equivalent human body phantom. Results demonstrate a return loss of -16.69 dB, and -15.53 dB for the stacked and stacked-slotted triangular patches, respectively. Furthermore, the maximum SAR value obtained from both designs satisfy the IEEE standard safety guidelines, which is necessary for ensuring patient safety. This makes the two proposed antenna designs great candidates for WBAN applications.