Scalable conformal array for multi-gigabit body centric wireless communication

In this work a conceptual design of a conformal antenna array is presented for a millimeter-wave antenna system, optimized for low-cost mass production in PCB technology. The conformal array is constituted by four cube faces with two antennas realized on each face. A printed circuit board (PCB) laminate material was chosen for developing this integrated 60 GHz antenna solution. The beamforming capabilities of the 1 × 8 antenna array were validated using similar array topology but at frequency of 17.2 GHz. The proposed array enables the formation of a steerable high gain beam, significantly compensating the channel loss or shadowing in body area network (BAN), thus offering more robust, higher speed performance. The array topology is easily scalable and the antenna gain up till 12.2 dB is reachable. On one side such high gain combined with an agile beam steering is a significant power saving solution for RF front-end. On the other side a use of 60 GHz frequency band makes the antenna array extremely small and thus easily embeddable into wearable medical or commercial devices.