Comparison of the performance of the two different UWB antennas for the use in WBAN on-body communication

Body-worn equipment is a device used for diagnostics and health monitoring in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology is one of the possible technologies for WBAN on-body communication utilized in the IEEE 802.15.6, which is a standard for the WBAN. In this paper, we will present the comparison of two different UWB antennas for the on-body communication in WBAN: UWB monopole and loop antennas. First, the antennas have been designed in such ways to have satisfactory performance in free space. Second, the performance of antennas in direct contact with the modeled body has been tested. With having uniform free space performance and acceptable performance while in direct contact with body, antennas can be used in both environments without any further adjustments. In the simulations, a designed layered human body tissue model has been used. Based on this study, the simulation results proved the small monopole antenna with the ground plane to be better solution than the presented loop when the operation in direct contact with body is needed.