Characterization of Wearable and Implanted Antennas: Test Procedure and Range Design

A method for measuring deembedded antenna parameters of wearable and implanted antennas for on-body communications is presented. It consists of a tapered flat phantom in order to characterize an antenna's general ability to excite surface waves traveling along the boundary between body tissue a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation 2022-04, Vol.70 (4), p.2593-2601
Main Authors: Berkelmann, Lukas, Manteuffel, Dirk
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antenna design
Antenna gain
Antenna measurements
Antenna radiation patterns
Antennas
Body area networks
Design
Gain measurement
implanted antennas
Loss measurement
Measurement methods
on-body propagation
Parameters
Smartphones
Surface waves
Test procedures
Tissues
wearable antennas
Wearable technology
wireless body area networks (WBANs)
Wireless communication
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Summary:A method for measuring deembedded antenna parameters of wearable and implanted antennas for on-body communications is presented. It consists of a tapered flat phantom in order to characterize an antenna's general ability to excite surface waves traveling along the boundary between body tissue and free space, expressed by an angular on-body antenna gain. The design offers a test zone large enough for most typical wireless body area network devices up to smartphone size while minimizing the required amount of tissue-simulating material. The designed antenna test range is validated in the 2.4 GHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band. To showcase the applicability to a realistic application, different designs of antennas integrated into an implanted pacemaker are characterized by their on-body gain patterns. A comparison of their performance in in situ path-loss measurements reveals a clear relation to the on-body gain patterns and indicates that this parameter is a suitable measure for enabling educated antenna design for on-body applications.
ISSN:0018-926X
1558-2221
DOI:10.1109/TAP.2021.3126386