A Wearable Low-Profile Flexible Dual-Polarized Antenna Array Loaded with AMC for 5 GHz WLAN On-/Off-Body Applications

In this paper, a dual-polarized antenna array loaded with an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) for 5 GHz wearable wireless local area network (WLAN) applications is proposed. The low-profile flexible antenna is a combination of a dual-port patch antenna array with an AMC as a ground plane, which has good flexibility to be bent on the arm. The array is composed of four dual-polarized patch antennas. It operates at 5.8 GHz with a -10 dB bandwidth of 350 MHz and a realized gain of 4.6 dBi in free space. To maintain antenna performance with human tissue scenarios, a flexible 12 × 4 AMC array with the same size as the antenna array is employed. In free space, the low-profile design exhibited a -10 dB bandwidth enhancement of 450 MHz and a realized gain enhancement of 3.3 dBi. Due to the good front-to-back ratio (FBR) exhibited by the AMC, the proposed antenna has a low specific absorption rate (SAR) value. These advantages make the antenna array a suitable candidate for 5 GHz wearable applications.