Dual-Band Self-Complementary 5G Antenna for Wireless Body Area Network

Abstract

A design of a self-complementary dual-band fifth-generation (5G) antenna for a wireless body area network (WBAN) has been presented in this paper. Like many other advantages, dual-band antennas have the benefit of being able to establish a reliable wireless connection in places that are frequently out of reach. The antenna operates at two popular 5G NR, FR-2 frequency bands: n257, or 28 GHz, and n260, or 39 GHz. FR-2 bands are prominent for high-speed data transactions within a limited range, which is perfect for WBAN applications. The proposed self-complementary single element design has a physical size of 6 mm × 8 mm × 1.59 mm and is designed with a Rogers RT6002 substrate with a dielectric constant of 2.94. In free space simulations, the antenna performed satisfactorily, achieving around 90% efficiency and having return losses of 16.32 dB and 20.47 dB at the lower and upper frequency bands sequentially. The antenna generated almost omnidirectional patterns at both frequencies with a peak gain of 4.74 dB. By placing the antenna next to a 3D human torso phantom that had been digitally created with accurate human body features, the design’s onbody performance was assessed. Onbody simulations produced favorable performance with a small dispersion from their peak values in some parameters, i.e., efficiency and reflection coefficients but produced more gains: 4.34 dBi at 28 GHz and 6.19 dBi at 39 GHz. For further distance-based investigation, the antenna was placed in five different positions relative to the torso. The test yields 67% efficiency with the minimum gap and 71% at the highest distance from the human body for the lowest band. Though the lower-frequency band produces better results with more gaps, the higher-frequency band performs consistently better in even the closest placement to the human body model by reaching more than 6 dB of gain with above 81% efficiency and wider than 10 GHz of bandwidth. The overall performance indicates this design can be a good solution to complex WBAN scenarios.

Metasurface loaded dual band antenna for high gain on- and off- body communication

“…Thus, the effects of wirelessly communicating devices on human health can't be neglected and more efforts should be made to design an antenna system having low effects on human tissues without compromising its overall performance [19,20]. In this context, a number of antenna designs are proposed by researchers targeting On-and Off-body application [21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. For instance, a button is proposed in [21] for dual band applications at 2.45 and 5.8 GHz.…”

“…A relatively big sized antenna with directional radiation pattern and dual band operation is discussed in [21], the work offers strong performance for On-body analysis. [26] presents a pattern diverse two port MIMO antenna for On-body applications while a flexible antenna based on inkjet printing technique is presented in [27]. Although these all reported works are capable for On-body applications, still they have low potential for off body application due to their limited bandwidth and low gain.…”