volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

In the paper, an optically transparent wideband antenna is proposed for wearable off-body communications. It consists of two identical asymmetric dipoles connected by parallel metal plates, and is directly fed through the feeding cable. The dual-dipole system allows for the realization of high front-to-back ratio (FBR) without the need of the ground as a reflecting surface, and size reduction can be obtained. The asymmetric dipole can generate two resonant frequencies, thereby expanding the operated bandwidth. In addition, optical transparency is achieved by slotting the dipole and embedding it in the silicone dielectric. For validation, a prototype is fabricated, which exhibits a size of 0.41λ₀ x 0.14λ₀ x 0.13λ₀. The results show that the prototype has a 10-dB fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 34%, an FBR of more than 14.1 dB, and a cross-polarization ratio of more than 20.8 dB. Within the bandwidth, the gain is larger than 2.79 dBi with the average efficiency of over 60 %.

1. Yang, Shuhui, Liangyun Zhang, Wensong Wang, and Yuanjin Zheng, "Flexible tri-band dual-polarized MIMO belt strap antenna toward wearable applications in intelligent internet of medical things," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 70, No. 1, 197-208, 2022.

2. Zaidi, Norsyahirah Izzati, Nurul Huda Abd Rahman, Mohamad Faizul Yahya, Muhammad Shakir Amin Nordin, Suhaila Subahir, Yoshihide Yamada, and Abhijit Majumdar, "Analysis on bending performance of the electro-textile antennas with bandwidth enhancement for wearable tracking application," IEEE Access, Vol. 10, 31800-31820, 2022.

3. Zheng, Wenrui, Hui Li, and Guolin Liu, "Design of circularly polarized smartwatch antenna with reactive loads," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 22, No. 7, 1602-1606, 2023.

4. Simorangkir, Roy B. V. B., Asimina Kiourti, and Karu P. Esselle, "UWB wearable antenna with a full ground plane based on PDMS-embedded conductive fabric," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 17, No. 3, 493-496, 2018.

5. Yu, Shu-Wei, Xiao Zhang, Qiong-Sen Wu, Lei Zhu, Tao Yuan, and Qing-Hua Jiang, "Low-SAR and high-FBR patch antenna with small ground size for wearable devices," IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 5, No. 1, 124-129, 2024.

6. Dang, Quoc Hung, Shengjian Jammy Chen, Damith Chinthana Ranasinghe, and Christophe Fumeaux, "Dual-band reconfigurable flexible antenna with independent frequency tunability," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 22, No. 3, 531-535, 2023.

7. Ashyap, Adel Y. I., Samsul Haimi Bin Dahlan, Zuhairiah Zainal Abidin, Muhammad Hashim Dahri, Huda A. Majid, Muhammad Ramlee Kamarudin, See Khee Yee, Mohd Haizal Jamaluddin, Akram Alomainy, and Qammer H. Abbasi, "Robust and efficient integrated antenna with EBG-DGS enabled wide bandwidth for wearable medical device applications," IEEE Access, Vol. 8, 56346-56358, 2020.

8. Sun, Hucheng, Yan Hu, Rui Ren, Luyang Zhao, and Fengrong Li, "Design of pattern-reconfigurable wearable antennas for body-centric communications," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 19, No. 8, 1385-1389, 2020.

9. Gao, Guo-Ping, Chen Yang, Bin Hu, Rui-Feng Zhang, and Shao-Fei Wang, "A wide-bandwidth wearable all-textile PIFA with dual resonance modes for 5 GHz WLAN applications," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 67, No. 6, 4206-4211, 2019.

10. Radavaram, Sai, Saininad Naik, and Maria Pour, "Stably polarized wideband circular microstrip antenna excited in TM12 mode," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 69, No. 4, 2370-2375, 2021.

11. Zhang, Ke, Zhi Hao Jiang, Wei Hong, and Douglas H. Werner, "A low-profile and wideband triple-mode antenna for wireless body area network concurrent on-/off-body communications," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 68, No. 3, 1982-1994, 2020.

12. Yu, Zhen, Ruirong Niu, Guodong Zhang, Runzhi Sun, Ziheng Lin, Yao Li, and Xiaoying Ran, "A wearable self-grounding slit antenna for ISM/4G/5G/bluetooth/WLAN applications," IEEE Access, Vol. 11, 87930-87937, 2023.

13. Le, Tu Tuan and Tae-Yeoul Yun, "Miniaturization of a dual-band wearable antenna for WBAN applications," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 19, No. 8, 1452-1456, 2020.

14. Dey, Amit Baran, Sagar Kumar, Wasim Arif, and Jaume Anguera, "Elastomeric textile substrates to design a compact, low-profile AMC-based antenna for medical and IoT applications," IEEE Internet of Things Journal, Vol. 10, No. 6, 4952-4969, 2023.

15. He, Pei-Yu, Fei-Peng Lai, and Yen-Sheng Chen, "Sensitivity enhancement in cardio-pulmonary stethoscope applications through artificial magnetic conductor-backed antenna design," IEEE Journal of Electromagnetics, RF and Microwaves in Medicine and Biology , Vol. 8, No. 2, 135-143, 2024.

16. El Atrash, Mohamed, Mahmoud A. Abdalla, and Hadia M. Elhennawy, "A wearable dual-band low profile high gain low SAR antenna AMC-backed for WBAN applications," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 67, No. 10, 6378-6388, 2019.

17. Gao, Shan, Le Chang, and Anxue Zhang, "Novel unidirectional radiation principle by backward field cancelation and its application to wearable IoT devices," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 22, No. 12, 3037-3041, 2023.

18. Casula, Giovanni Andrea, Giorgio Montisci, and Giacomo Muntoni, "A novel design for dual-band wearable textile eighth-mode SIW antennas," IEEE Access, Vol. 11, 11555-11569, 2023.

19. Dang, Quoc Hung, Shengjian Jammy Chen, Damith Chinthana Ranasinghe, and Christophe Fumeaux, "A frequency-reconfigurable wearable textile antenna with one-octave tuning range," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 69, No. 12, 8080-8089, 2021.

20. Çelenk, Esra and Nurhan Türker Tokan, "All-textile on-body antenna for military applications," IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol. 21, No. 5, 1065-1069, 2022.

21. Sayem, A., Roy B. V. B. Simorangkir, Karu P. Esselle, Raheel M. Hashmi, and Hangrui Liu, "A method to develop flexible robust optically transparent unidirectional antennas utilizing pure water, PDMS, and transparent conductive mesh," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 68, No. 10, 6943-6952, 2020.

22. Sayem, A., Roy B. V. B. Simorangkir, Karu P. Esselle, and Raheel M. Hashmi, "Development of robust transparent conformal antennas based on conductive mesh-polymer composite for unobtrusive wearable applications," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 67, No. 12, 7216-7224, 2019.

23. Zhu, Wenjin, Xiongying Liu, Yi Fan, Zeqing Zhang, and Xujiong Ma, "Transparent and flexible antenna with polarization reconfigurability using EGaIn for wearable applications," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 72, No. 10, 7493-7503, 2024.

Dr. Yanjie Pei

Professor Hongmei Liu

Dr. Jingguo Zhang

Dr. Zhongbao Wang