Water ageing effect on wearable antenna made of medical-friendly and transdermal material at 2.4 GHz

Abstract

This paper presents the feasibility investigation of a flexible antenna made of medical material as the substrate for medical application. A 2.4 GHz antenna is designed on three different medical-friendly materials: cotton-crepe bandage, artificial cotton patch and semi-transparent silicone patch. Water ageing test is conducted to explore the ability of the proposed flexible substrate materials to cope with the wetness issue. The antenna performance in four conditions (original, fully wet, damp and fully dry) are measured and compared. The water-aged antennas' physical condition are observed and the results show that the flexible antenna made of artificial cotton patch retains its radiation performance. Only a minor shift of approximately 40 MHz of resonant frequency is found for the flexible antenna made of cotton-crepe patch. The work presented here has profound effect on the future development of wearable antenna suitable for health monitoring applications.