Radiation characteristics improvement of monopole antenna for WBAN applications

Abstract

A P-shaped monopole antenna (PSMA) attached with a glass substrate is proposed for wireless body area networks (WBAN) applications. The study investigates the performance of PSMA above reflection plane substrates with different material of glass and a perfect electric conductor (PEC). The PSMA prototype is fabricated on the FR4 substrateto be operated between 3.1 to 5.1 GHz frequency band. It is discovered that the PSMA efficiency could be enhanced by integrating the ground plane with a glass for the brain and chest human body. For brain model, the antenna efficiency of 78.8%, 80.3% and 85.6% is achieved for 3.3, 4.45 and 5 GHz respectively. The antenna efficiency in the chest model is improved to 75.2%, 76.35% and 81.2% at particular 3.3, 4.45 and 5 GHz respectively. Therefore, this study concludes that the reflection plane help to increase the gain and efficiency of close proximity of body surface. Additionally, the PSMA with reflection plane improves SAR when placed near human body if compared to the other antennas. A fascinating conformity was found between the simulation and measurement results that potentialto be deployed for WBAN applications.