A Low-Profile Wideband Monopole Antenna for WBAN Flexible Applications

This paper presents a wideband monopole antenna with a low-profile structure for wireless body area network applications. The antenna features a rectangular monopole patch with circular and rectangular cuts and operates at 11.92 GHz to 21.66 GHz with a 9.74 GHz bandwidth. The electrical length of the antenna is 1.2λ. The antenna is simulated with an approximate four-layer human body tissue model. A slight frequency shift and gain attenuation are observed affected by the tissue model. SAR values are also simulated with different distances between the antenna and the tissue model, which indicates the safe distance must be at least 20 mm.