E-textile slot antenna with spurious mode suppression and low SAR for medical wearable applications

Abstract

In this paper, electronic textile (E-textile) antenna design, with spurious mode suppression and low specific absorption rate (SAR), at a nearest distance of 1 mm from on-body phantom is investigated. The textile antenna is designed using a denim substrate material with conductive patch as a radiating element. The slots are introduced on the patch for spurious mode suppression so that external radio frequency components can be integrated with textile antenna without hampering the efficiency of the body area network system. The measured bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 100 MHz (2.39–2.49 GHz) in the 2.45 GHz ISM frequency band with broadside radiation pattern. The radiation pattern at spurious mode is suppressed by 5 dB without any change in the resonance frequency of fundamental mode. Besides, considering human safety for wearable devices, the SAR values average over 1 g of tissue are 0.208, 0.106 and 0.087 W/Kg at a distance of 1, 3 and 5 mm from on-body phantom, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Electronic textile (E-textile) antenna
• specific absorption rate (SAR)
• body area network (BAN)
• spurious mode

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Technical Education Quality Improvement Program Phase-III (TEQIP-III) and Sensor lab. Electronics Dept., Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat, for supporting and providing facility for this research work. The authors also acknowledge the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) for supporting financially to conduct this research work. This publication is an outcome of the R&D work undertaken in the project under the Visvesvaraya Ph.D. Scheme of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, as implemented by the Digital India Corporation (formerly Media Lab Asia).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology.

Notes on contributors

Arpan Shah

Arpan Shah has received B.E. in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India and M.Tech in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Mumbai University, Mumbai, India in 2011 and 2015, respectively. Currently, he is pursuing Ph.D. in Electronics Engineering at Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat. His research interests include wearable antennas, planar microstrip antennas and antennas design using artificial neural network. He is a student member of IEEE Antenna and Propagation Society.

Piyush Patel

Dr. Piyush Patel is currently working as an Associate Professor in Electronics Engineering Department at Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology. He has more than 20 years of teaching and research experience. He has published more than 30 research articles in various national and international conferences and journals of repute. Having a great inclination toward the development of optical and microwave devices and sensors. He is actively involved with different research and funding agencies like DRDO, TEQIP, DIETY and DBT for research projects. He is also a reviewer and editorial board member in Optics communication (Elsevier), IEEE sensors Journal UK, WESEAS transaction on communication Greece, and many others. Currently, seven scholars are doing their Ph.D. under his supervision in the emerging area of research.