Compact wearable low‐SAR dual band antenna for on body network applications

Summary A compact antenna is designed for on‐body applications in the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) frequency bands in the range from 2.45 to 5.8 GHz. A circular structure with triangular slots is used to address dual‐band applications. The antenna is designed on a flexible polyimide substrate with a dielectric constant of 3.5 and loss tangent of 0.008. Bending analysis of the antenna is performed to analyze its flexibility. The proposed antenna covers the frequency ranges of 2.3–3.5 and 5.1–6.8 GHz with fractional bandwidths of 41% and 28%. The antenna provides stable dipole and omnidirectional patterns. The measured antenna exhibits peak gain values of 2.3 dBi at 2.5 GHz and 4.7 dBi at 5.8 GHz with radiation efficiency of 78% at 2.5 GHz and 84% at 5.8 GHz. To validate the antenna performance, the simulated results for the antenna are compared with measurements carried out with the antenna on the human body.