A Wideband Circularly Polarized Implantable Patch Antenna for ISM Band Biomedical Applications

This communication presents a novel compact broadband circularly polarized (CP) implantable patch antenna for biomedical applications in 2.4 GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band. By employing slots on the patch plane and shorting method, the whole size (including the superstrate) of the designed antenna can be enormously reduced to 9.8 x 9.8 x 1.27 mm(3), which is equivalent to 0.0784 lambda(0) x 0.0784 lambda(0) x 0.0102 lambda(0) (lambda(0) is the free-space wavelength at 2.4 GHz). Under the premise of keeping a slotless ground, not only a good size reduction is realized but also the impedance bandwidth and the axial ratio (AR) bandwidth are greatly improved. A simulated -10 dB impedance bandwidth of 21.5% with a 3 dB AR bandwidth of 15.8% is acquired in a skin phantom. The antenna also exhibits good robustness to different thicknesses of biocompatible coating. The influence of different body phantoms is discussed to evaluate the sensitivity of the proposed antenna. The experiments are carried out in both skin-mimicking gel and pork, and the respective measured impedance bandwidths are 25.9% and 25.7%. The CP purity is experimentally validated by comparing the communication link levels in two orthogonal polarization directions. The maximum specific absorption rate (SAR) value satisfies the IEEE standard safety guidelines.