4th International Conference on Electrical and Information Technologies ICEIT’2020

Flexible Wearable Antenna for Body Centric Wireless

Communication in S-Band
Amal Afyf 1, Achraf Elouerghi 2, Maroua Afyf 2, M. Adel Sennouni 2, Larbi Bellarbi 2
1
IM2NP laboratory, UMR 7334 CNRS, Aix-Marseille University, France.
2STIS Laboratory, Higher National School of Technical Education (ENSET)

Mohammed V University of Rabat.

[email protected]; [email protected]

Abstract— Passive Microwave Imaging (PMI) has been widely TABLE I. THE PENETRATION DEPTH OF TISSUES VERSUS FREQUENCY.
studied for breast cancer detection in recent times. Sensing σ (S/m) 1.464 0.1045 0.3943 1.7388
dielectric property differences of tissues over a wide frequency
band has been made possible by ultra-wideband (UWB) 2-4 Penetration 22.57 117.02 22.33 45.77
techniques. In this paper, a flexible, compact monopole antenna GHz depth(mm)
on a Kapton polyimide is designed and fabricated, using a
Computer Simulation Technology simulator (CST) and MEMS
technology, to be in contact with biological breast tissues over the
εr 35.11 4.954 48.48 9.674
S-Band (2-4 GHz). The antenna parameters are optimized to
obtain a good impedance match over the required frequency
range. The operation of the antenna close to the human body
necessitates adjusting its design for the intended applications
whereas the maximum SAR value estimated in such conditions
has to respect the standards. In this context, simulation tools that
can take into account specific biological models offer a range of
possibilities for investigating and optimizing the performance of
Body-Centric Wireless Networks (BCWNs) devices.

Keywords— Passive Microwave Imaging, ultra-wideband flexible

antenna, Kapton Polymide, MEMS, S-Band, CST, SAR, Body-
Centric Wireless Networks.
I. INTRODUCTION
Due to its direct and beneficial impact both economically
and socially in various application domains, body-centric
wireless networks (BCWNs) have recently gained substantial
recognition and interest in both academic and industrial
Fig. 1. The relation between frequency range (100MHz-10GHz), and
communities [1]. The ever increasing use of wireless devices in Penetration depth for the different tissues [3].
personal health care, entertainment, security and personal
identification, fashion, and personalized communications, etc. Antenna is the most important part in the field of wireless
drives research to establish more reliable and efficient link communication [4]. Due to growing technology, antenna
between the devices mounted on the body. requirement is also gaining heights. For this particular purpose,
it has to be lightweight, low cost and small size [5].
Body centric communications takes its place firmly within
the sphere of wireless personal area networks (WPANs), II. ANTENNA DESIGN
wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and wireless body area According to several previous works on planar antennas
networks (WBANs). The topic of BCWN can be divided into and the effect of many technologies as the slots, stubs,
three main domains: on-body (communications within on-body radiating element cuts, topography and others, on the structure
networks and wearable systems), off-body (communications behavior, authors propose this simple antenna prototype [6-9].
from off-body to an on-body device or system), and in-body A flexible CPW rectangular antenna (25X36X0.16 mm3) with
(communications to medical implants and sensor networks) a Π- shaped slot in the medium of the radiator and two tuning
[2]. stubs is designed. The extremely thin Kapton-substrate Hs
Low frequencies provide deeper penetration (less loss) but the used in the design makes the antenna suitable for being
higher frequencies offer better range resolution (smaller implemented or pasted on clothes. Fig.1 shows the geometry
antenna). However, there is a practical limitation in the deep shape of the proposed antenna. The ungrounded antenna is
penetration, the performances of antenna and the operating etched on Kapton Polyimide substrate with a thickness of HS
frequency, a penetration of 30 mm can obtained using a and dielectric constant of 3.4. In order to maintain the
frequency around 3GHz (Table & Fig. 1). flexibility of the antenna the excitation is made through a 50Ω
CPW feed line. Then by using optimization solver in CST-MW

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 4th International Conference on Electrical and Information Technologies ICEIT’2020

Studio several optimization processes was applied until we III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
obtained the desired performances of the antenna. This section mainly presents the major simulation and
Table below presents the optimized parameters of the experimental results of the designed antenna. The optimum
developed antenna. values of the antenna parameters were provides a good
matching input impedance with a good return loss. From Fig.
4 it is seen that the proposed antenna has a good impedance
matching with a return loss of about -32dB at the operating
frequency of 3.5 GHz. Then a comparison between the
measured return loss and the simulated one is presented in Fig.
4 It is quite clear that there is a good agreement between the
measured and the simulated return loss of the proposed
antenna which has been achieved from 3.23GHz to 3.75GHz
with an impedance bandwidth of about 570MHz. Then the
measured return loss has been achieved from less 2 GHz to
about 4.1GHz with an impedance bandwidth of about 2GHz.
LS This is 350.87% improvement over the simulation bandwidth
prediction. The obtained result indicates that the transmitter
and antenna are well matched and a maximum possible
amount of energy is absorbed at the input terminal with a
minimum reflected power.

Fig. 2.The proposed flexible CPW antenna

The table below presents the various parameters of
the antenna shown in the Fig.2.
TABLE II. PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE ANTENNA.

Parameters Values Parameters Values

(mm) (mm)
L 36 W 25
LS 6 WS 1
LA 18 WA 16
LG 10 G 1
TM 0.035 HS 0.125
LF 18 WF 3.3
A 17 C 6 Fig. 4. Simulated & measured result.
B 5.85 D 1.5
IV. INHOMOGENEOUS BREAST MODELING
The antenna fabrication is carried out in the White A miniature antenna in contact with biological tissues will
Chamber of ENSIM, Le Mans University/ France. have very different propagation behavior than one in free
Measurements taken in the Anechoic Chamber of ESEO, space [10]. The antennas must be designed taking into account
Angers/ France are shown in the next section. the impact of the proximity to biological tissues. The multiple
biological tissues in breast cancer detection have varying
conductivity and dielectric constants leading to complex RF
interaction [11]–[13].The breast as a communication media is
modeled by several biological tissues and each biological
tissue is defined as a dispersive dielectric in a homogeneous
medium using three electrical parameters: relative
permittivity, loss tangent and mass density. By stacking
several homogeneous layers, the inhomogeneous environment
is modeled with the CST-MWS. The multi-layer model that is
used to design the breast phantom using CST-MWS and
includes skin, fat, gland, and muscle, is shown in fig. 4. The
frequency dependent relative permittivity and loss tangent are
plotted in fig. 5 & 6 [14] for the entire S band. The loss
Fig. 3. Fabricated proposed antenna under measurement in Anechoic tangent quantifies inherent dielectric dissipation when
Chamber. interacting with an electromagnetic wave. The mass density,

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 4th International Conference on Electrical and Information Technologies ICEIT’2020

i.e., the mass of each tissue per volume unit, is reported in [11]
for different breast tissues; this parameter is needed for
calculation of SAR.

Fig. 7. Multi-layer inhomogeneous model of the breast.

Fig. 5. Relative permittivity of different tissues in the breast.
The bended flexible antenna on the designed breast phantom
is shown in fig. 8.

Fig. 6. Loss tangent of different tissues in the breast

The simulated geometrical parameters of the breast model are

presented in Table III.

TABLE III. BREAST PHANTOM PROPERITIES FOR 3.5 GHZ [15]. Fig. 8. The flexible antenna bended on the breast phantom.

Phantom ℰr Rho Elect. Thick. V. SIMULATION RESULTS

parts (Kg/m3) cond. (mm) A. S-Parameters
(S/m) The simulation result for reflection coefficient (S11) is
Skin 37 1109 2.02 1.7 shown in fig. 9. The reflection coefficient is below -10 dB
Fat 49.4 911 2.2 1.4 from 3.2 GHz to 6 GHz for each position. As is shown from
Gland 55.7 1041 2.93 7 results, the flexible antenna is not sensitive to bending.
Muscle 51.4 1090 2.56 5

The proposed antenna is designed to operate in contact with

stacked layers of biological tissues in a detection system, to
avoid power reflections (between tissues) caused by
inhomogeneities in the breast media, should be designed with
an inhomogeneous model to capture all phenomena during the
design process. In this way, the antenna can provide as much
energy as possible in order to receive transmitted signals with
reasonable strengths from breast tissues. Using CST-MWS the
breast phantom is designed (Fig. 7), taking into account the
characteristics cited in Table III.

Fig. 9. S11 of the bended structure.

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 4th International Conference on Electrical and Information Technologies ICEIT’2020

B. Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) REFERENCES

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