Design investigation of a dual-band wearable antenna for tele-monitoring applications

TLDR: A good agreement between simulation and experimental results are obtained by a fabricated prototype of the antenna, and the results represent this antenna is a promising candidate in biomedical technology such as tele-monitoring at the GSM bands.

Abstract: This paper presents a novel dual-band wearable antenna using Rectangular Parasitic Elements (RPEs) and Defected Ground Structure (DGS) methods in telemedicine applications. The dual-band ranges covered by this antenna are in 890–960 MHz and 1710–1885 MHz which are used in Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) applications. Wearable and flexible material that is used as the substrate is a standard rubber with dielectric constant er = 3, thickness = 1.57 mm, and tan (δ) = 0.0095. The dimensions of the proposed wearable antenna are 70 × 85 × 1.64 mm3 or 0.0007λg3 at 900 MHz. The measured maximum gain is achieved at 900 MHz and 1800 MHz, which are equal to 7.46 dB and 8.13 dB, respectively. A good agreement between simulation and experimental results are obtained by a fabricated prototype of the antenna. Therefore, the results represent this antenna is a promising candidate in biomedical technology such as tele-monitoring at the GSM bands.