Flexible PIFA antenna design for wireless sensor networks in wearable healthcare applications

In this work a flexible wearable PIFA antenna has been designed in order to operate according to the Bluetooth v4 standard (2400-2483.5 MHz) in healthcare applications designed for wireless sensor networks. The substrate design includes the textile and human skin effects as well as the antenna flexible substrate (Pyralux). The return losses results show a strong detuning (36.8 %) of the operation frequency of the antenna due to the outfit and human skin presence, instead of air, and therefore a redesign of the antenna dimensions has been done (42.2% of miniaturization of the antenna layer). Some antenna performance changes are observed in terms of the radiation pattern and gain reduction due to the body proximityPeer Reviewe