On-body measurements of SS-UWB patch antenna for WBAN applications

In this paper, performance of a Swastika slot-ultra-wideband (SS-UWB) patch antenna for an on-body application is investigated. This antenna is intended for the use in UWB wireless body area network (WBAN) applications, between 3.1 and 10.6 GHz. The proposed antenna is a SS-UWB patch antenna of dimension 27 mm × 27 mm × 1.6 mm. It is fabricated and tested in free space scenario instead in anechoic chamber to obtain more realistic on-body measurement results. This SS-UWB patch antenna covers the ultra-wide frequency spectrum in the range 4.25–12.5 GHz [8.25 GHz] with a quasi-omni directional gain from 1.77 to 5.6 dB. This antenna's efficiency is from 81.3% to 90.67% (−1.8 to −0.85 dB) over free space. The antenna is characterized in free space as well as on body model with and without antenna body gap. Measured results obtained from the antenna like S11, radiation pattern, antenna efficiency, and gain are matched with the simulated results.