A flower bud-shaped flexible UWB antenna for healthcare applications

Abstract

Remote surveillance of the elderly and others with health difficulties is becoming increasingly important in these epidemic days. To address these issues, low-cost, lightweight, and portable wearable devices are in huge demand. This paper realizes the design and analysis of a flexible ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna for healthcare applications. The proposed hexagonal microstrip antenna encompasses two cuts on the top left and right side of the hexagon which looks like a flower bud. The antenna is fabricated using a flexible foam substrate with a dielectric constant of 1.07 and has a dimension of $38\times 30\times 1.7{\text{mm}}^3$. With a unique patch shape and corner cut in the partial ground, the present design strives to optimize the antenna structure to accommodate UWB (3.1 to 10.6 GHz) operating spectrum from 2.6 to 11.3 GHz. The proposed antenna has achieved an FBW of 125.17% with a total gain of 5.24 dB. The antenna is also evaluated on the line of bending and SAR over a tissue of 1 g and 10 g. The antenna operated admirably, with an average SAR value below the safety limits of 1.6 W/kg and 2 W/kg for the tissues, respectively.