Open Access

ARTICLE

A Compact Flexible Circularly Polarized Implantable Antenna for Biotelemetry Applications

Sarosh Ahmad^1,*, Shakir Ullah², Adnan Ghaffar³, Daniel Segovia Vargas¹

1 Department of Signal Theory and Communications, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, 28911, Spain
2 Department of Telecommunication Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, 25120, Pakistan
3 Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand

* Corresponding Author: Sarosh Ahmad. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2022, 73(2), 2457-2472. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2022.025527

Received 26 November 2021; Accepted 28 December 2021; Issue published 16 June 2022

Abstract

With the help of in-body antennas, the wireless communication among the implantable medical devices (IMDs) and exterior monitoring equipment, the telemetry system has brought us many benefits. Thus, a very thin-profile circularly polarized (CP) in-body antenna, functioning in ISM band at 2.45 GHz, is proposed. A tapered coplanar waveguide (CPW) method is used to excite the antenna. The radiator contains a pentagonal shape with five horizontal slits inside to obtain a circular polarization behavior. A bendable Roger Duroid RT5880 material (ε_r = 2.2, tanδ = 0.0009) with a typical 0.25 mm-thickness is used as a substrate. The proposed antenna has a total volume of 21 × 13 × 0.25 mm³. The antenna covers up a bandwidth of 2.38 to 2.53 GHz (150 MHz) in vacuum, while in skin tissue it covers 1.56 to 2.72 GHz (1.16 GHz) and in the muscle tissue covers 2.16 to 3.17 GHz (1.01 GHz). GHz). The flexion analysis in the x and y axes was also performed in simulation as the proposed antenna works with a wider bandwidth in the skin and muscle tissue. The simulation and the curved antenna measurements turned out to be in good agreement. The impedance bandwidth of −10 dB and the axis ratio bandwidth of 3 dB (AR) are measured on the skin and imitative gel of the pig at 27.78% and 35.5%, 13.5% and 4.9%, respectively, at a frequency of 2.45 GHz. The simulations revealed that the specific absorption rate (SAR) in the skin is 0.634 and 0.914 W/kg in muscle on 1g-tissue. The recommended SAR values are below the limits set by the federal communications commission (FCC). Finally, the proposed low-profile implantable antenna has achieved very compact size, flexibility, lower SAR values, high gain, higher impedance and axis ratio bandwidths in the skin and muscle tissues of the human body. This antenna is smaller in size and a good applicant for application in medical implants.

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Keywords

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