On-body investigation of a compact planar antenna on multilayer polymer composite for body-centric wireless communications

A compact wearable flexible antenna, designed for optimal on-body performance in the 2.45 GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band, is proposed. Three different human body models (numerical three-layer and homogeneous tissue-equivalent model, and fabricated homogeneous tissue-equivalent phantom) are used to analyze the on-body performance of the antenna and specific absorption rate (SAR). The proposed antenna achieves more than 15.7% on-body radiation efficiency in the whole ISM frequency band and the peak 1 g average SAR less than 0.18 W/kg when it is placed directly over the skin of body model. The measured results are presented to demonstrate the validity of the proposed antenna. Furthermore, the proposed antenna offer advantages of being low profile, cheap and easy to fabricate. Low SAR values and high on-body antenna efficiency, making such an antenna a suited candidate for incorporation into various wearable devices for body-centric communications.