Measurements and Simulations for On-Body Antenna Design and Propagation Studies

This paper overviews a number of research activities aimed at characterising and optimising transmission links on human body. Measurement of the channel path gain with practical antennas and computer simulations of for body movement are presented. Performance of shorted microstrip patches is compared to that of monopole and disc-loaded monopole antennas. Different orientations of the shorted patches are compared. Use of simulations in the analysis of the effect of body dynamics on on-body antenna design and channel characterisation is demonstrated by numerical analysis of an FM wearable dipole antenna and simulations of the path gain variation while the user is standing up.