Design of an implantable antenna for WBAN applications

In this paper, an implantable planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) for an artificial cardiac pacemaker is proposed. The antenna has a simple structure with a low profile and is placed on the top side of the pacemaker. The dimension of the pacemaker system, including the antenna element, is 42 mm × 43.6 mm × 11 mm. When the antenna is embedded in pig tissue, -10 dB impedance bandwidth of the antenna is 6 MHz (399 ~ 406 MHz). The proposed PIFA in tissue has a peak gain of -20.19 dBi and a radiation efficiency of 1.12 % at 403 MHz. When the proposed antenna is placed in a liquid flat phantom, its specific absorption ratio (SAR) value is 0.038 W/Kg (1 g tissue). Performances of the proposed PIFA is sufficient to operate at the MICS band (402 ~ 405 MHz).