Broadband Tissue-Equivalent Phantom for BAN Applications at Millimeter Waves

The extension of body area networks from microwaves to millimeter waves requires to develop experimental phantoms emulating the dielectric properties of human skin for the accurate, reproducible, and well-controlled characterization of wearable antennas, on-body propagation channel, and absorption of the electromagnetic power by the human body. Here we introduce a broadband skin-equivalent semisolid phantom whose composition is optimized to coincide with measured values of the human skin permittivity in the 55-65-GHz range. To confirm the accuracy of this phantom, specific absorption rate measurements are performed at 60 GHz using a temperature-based approach. An excellent agreement between the experimental and numerical results is demonstrated.