Dual-Band Dual-Mode Wearable Antenna for On-Off Body Communication Based on Metamaterial

Wearable antennas are applied in telernedicine, navigation, sports, military, etc. In this paper, a single layer dual-band dual-mode metamaterial microstrip patch antenna for on and off-body communications is presented. The operating frequencies are located at 2.45 GHz industrial scientific and medical (ISM) band and 5.3 GHz wireless local area network (WLAN) band. By loading the metamaterial unit cells at 2.45 GHz a monopole like radiation pattern and at 5.3 GHz a patch like radiation pattern are achieved. These are used for on and off body links in-turn. Due to the presence of metamaterial unit cells a miniaturization down to
$\pmb{7\lambda_{0}/60\times 7\lambda_{0}/60\times\lambda_{0}/30}$
) has been also achieved. The presence of full ground plane has resulted in a low backward radiation in both bands.