A Compact and Superstrate-Loaded Implantable Antenna for Leadless Cardiac Pacemaker System at ISM Band

The inclusion of Leadless Cardiac Pacemakers (LCP) into the world of pacemakers has led to the development of compact implantable antennas. In this communication, a compact and superstrate-loaded implantable antenna is designed for LCP systems in the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band. The proposed antenna has a small footprint of 10 x 10 mm
²
and is designed on a 0.635 mm thick Rogers RO Duroid 3010 substrate and superstrate material with a relative permittivity (ɛr) of 10.2 and a loss tangent (δ) of 0.0022. To prevent contact between the tissue and metal radiator, same material is employed as a superstrate on both sides of antenna. The size of proposed antenna is greatly reduced by employing the slotting approach in patch and ground plane. The antenna is first developed using a multilayer tissue model and then it is validated using Hugo voxel model. The proposed antenna is distinguished by its miniaturized dimension, superstrate-loading, broad bandwidth, acceptable SAR and satisfactorygain values in comparison to other implantable antennas. The simulated impedance bandwidths of antenna are 17.76 % and 26.5 % while the maximum simulated gain of antenna is -25.24 dB and -15.93 dB in multilayer tissue model and Hugo voxel model. Moreover, the distributions of specific absorption rate (SAR) in both scenarios are also evaluated, making the designed antenna an appropriate choice for LCP systems.