WEARABLE ANTENNAS FOR ON- BODY COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

A wearable antenna is meant to be a part of the clothing used for communication purposes, which includes tracking, mobile computing, navigation and public safety. The rapid development of body area network (BAN) concepts has spawned a considerable research interest over the past decade due to their promising applications in a wide variety of diverse areas including health monitoring, patient tracking, wearable computing, battlefield survival, and so on. Several frequency bands have been identified for research and commercialization of BAN communication systems, such as the 402- 405 MHz Medical Implant Communication Services (MICS) band, the 2.4 – 2.48 GHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band, the 3.1 – 10.76 GHz ultra-wide band (UWB) range and others. More recently, a new medical BAN (MBAN) band, which operates from 2.36 to 2.4 GHz, has been considered by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) for its clean spectrum and low interference sources. There is currently much interest in body-worn communication systems whether for off-body communications or on-body communications to fixed and mobile networks. Such systems are of interest for detecting motion on the body during exercise, monitoring functions such as pulse rate and blood pressure, use by the emergency services, and for general network connection. 1