Analyzing UHF-band antennas near anatomical human models with a fast integral-equation method

A fast integral-equation method is used to quantify the performance of UHF-band antennas near high-fidelity anatomical models of the human body. The surface-volume electric-field integral equation pertinent to the analysis is solved by employing triangular and voxel antenna-body meshes. Traditional basis/testing functions are defined throughout the model except at the antenna feed port: A finite-gap port model is used and novel basis/testing functions are introduced at the port to improve input impedance calculations. The computational costs are reduced by using a parallel FFT-accelerated surface-preconditioned iterative solver. The resulting method is used to compare the return loss and radiation pattern of an asymmetric meandered flare dipole antenna in three cases: (i) when it is in free space, (ii) when it is placed next to a homogeneous block body model, and (iii) when it is placed next to AustinMan and AustinWoman anatomical models. The results demonstrate the suitability of the proposed method for assisting the design of wearable antennas.