Wearable Antenna for Power Efficient On-Body and Off-Body Communications

A novel dual-band and diverse radiation pattern antenna is proposed for power efficient on-body and off-body communications intended for various applications in healthcare and sport monitor-ing. The antenna is dual band at 2.45 GHz (ISM band) with omnidirectional radiation pattern over the body surface to communicate power efficiently with other co-located body worn devices and at 1.9 GHz (PCS band), it has directive radiation pattern towards off the body to communicate from on-body device to off-body devices. The free space and on-body performances of the antenna are investigated by both simulation and experiment. The antenna shows very good on-body radiation efficiency of 58 % at 2.45 GHz and 61 % at 1.9 GHz. Good on-body gain is noticed at both frequency bands. Results show that the gain of the proposed antenna increases by 4.7 % at 2.45 GHz and 3.2% at 1.9 GHz when placed on the body