Design of Flexible Meander Line Antenna for Healthcare for Wireless Medical Body Area Networks

TL;DR

This paper presents a flexible meander line antenna designed for wearable healthcare applications in wireless medical body area networks, demonstrating wide bandwidth, high gain, and effective on-body performance with a read range of up to 11 meters.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel flexible meander line monopole antenna optimized for wearable healthcare, with validated measurements matching simulations and enhanced on-body performance.

Findings

Bandwidth up to 1282.4 MHz in free space

On-body bandwidth up to 688.9 MHz

Read range of up to 11 meters

Abstract

A flexible meander line monopole antenna (MMA) is presented in this paper. The antenna can be worn for on-and off-body applications. The overall dimension of the MMA is 37 mm x 50 mm x2.37 mm3. The MMA was manufactured and measured, and the results matched with simulation results. The MMA design shows a bandwidth of up to 1282.4 (450.5) MHz and provides gains of 3.03 (4.85) dBi in the lower and upper operating bands, respectively, showing omnidirectional radiation patterns in free space. While worn on the chest or arm, bandwidths as high as 688.9 (500.9) MHz and 1261.7 (524.2) MHz, and the gains of 3.80 (4.67) dBi and 3.00 (4.55) dBi were observed. The experimental measurements of the read range confirmed the results of the coverage range of up to 11 meters.