AMC Integrated Multilayer Wearable Antenna for Multiband WBAN Applications

In this paper, a compact, efficient and easy to fabricate wearable antenna integrated with Artificial Magnetic Conductor (AMC) is presented. Addition of slots and bevels/cuts in the rectangular monopole patch antenna yield a wide bandwidth along with band notches. The proposed antenna is backed with an AMC metasurface that changes the bidirectional radiation pattern to a unidirectional, thus, considerably reducing the Specific Absorption Ratio (SAR). The demonstrated antenna has a good coverage radiating away from the body and presents reduced radiation towards the body with a front-to-back ratio of 13 dB and maximum gain of 3.54 dB. The proposed design operates over a wide frequency band of 2.9 to 12 GHz (exceeding the designated 3.1−10.6 GHz Ultra-Wideband (UWB) band). The band notches were created using slots on the radiating patch in the sub-bands from 5.50 to 5.67 GHz and 7.16 to 7.74 GHz. The overall dimensions of the structure are 33 × 33 × 6.75 mm3. The antenna's radiation performance increased considerably with the addition of the AMC layer. The SAR values for the antenna are reduced by 85.3% when the AMC is used and are 0.083 W/kg which is well below the FCC SAR limits. The simple design, miniaturized profile, low SAR and wide operating bands with multiple band notches make the presented antenna an appealing choice for several UWB wearable body area network (WBAN) applications.