Compact Dual Band Implantable Antenna for Bio

Telemetry Application
Ayush Agarwal Jeet Ghosh
Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engg. Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engg.
The LNM Institute of Information Technology The LNM Institute of Information Technology
Jaipur, India Jaipur, India
[email protected] [email protected]

Gopinath Samanta M.V. Deepak Nair

Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engg. Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engg.
The LNM Institute of Information Technology The LNM Institute of Information Technology
Jaipur, India Jaipur, India
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—In this paper, a compact dual-band implantable affect the radiation performance of the antenna [2]. As a
antenna working at 915 MHz and 2.45 GHz is presented. The result, in order for the implanted antenna to function well in
proposed antenna consists of several horizontal and vertical slots this sensitive area, it must meet a number of requirements,
along with the shorting pin and full ground plane. Due to the
compact design along with the full ground plane, the structure including safe input power and specific absorption rate (SAR).
became a good candidate for implantable devices. The proposed To establish the communication link between WIMD and
antenna has a compact size of 9.5 × 9.5 × 0.54mm3 , which seems external unit, specific frequency bands, namely the medical
to be a very compact and miniaturized antenna. Moreover, the implantable communication service frequency band (MICS,
estimated specific absorption rate (SAR) complies with the IEEE 402–405 MHz), the wireless medical telemetry service fre-
standard for human safety. Lastly, a prototype of the proposed
dual-band implantable antenna configuration has been fabricated quency band (WMTS, 1.395–1.4 GHz), and the industrial,
and tested, and the measured result shows a good degree of scientific, and medical frequency bands (ISM, 433–434 MHz,
consistency with the simulated one. 902–908 MHz, 2.4–2.48 GHz, 5.715–5.875 GHz) are allocated
Index Terms—Implantable antenna, dual band, Slot, bioteleme- [6]–[8]. However, it is observed that most of the reported
try, SAR. antennas are operating in a single frequency of operation. In
[9], an annular ring-shaped antenna has been reported for the
I. I NTRODUCTION ISM 2.4 GHz frequency band. A single band meander-shaped
With the rapid development in the medical along with implantable linear polarized antenna is reported by Yang et.al.
information and communication technology, the modern-day for wireless pacemaker system [10]. However, to manage
healthcare industry has shifted its focus from reactive to several tasks at once, including data transfer, Sensing, wireless
preventive care. Due to this paradigm shift, the demand for power transfer, and sleep/wake applications, these advanced
wireless implantable medical devices (WIMD) to monitor multitasking devices need to be able to operate across multiple
physiological data, such as glucose monitoring, brain signal bands [11].
monitoring, pacemaker and capsule endoscopy systems etc, In order to achieve the requirement, engineers and re-
has significantly increased in the last couple of years. The searchers are interested to design for dual-band/multi band
WIMD can extract the bio-signal from the vital organ and antenna system with stable radiation performance. In [12],
transmit the information via an implantable antenna unit a dual band antenna with dimension of 478 mm3 has been
to the external or on-body receiver unit [1]. The WIMD reported. A cubic shaped dual band implantable antenna with
mainly consist of four components, Sensors, Batteries, RF dimension of 15×15×15 mm3 has been proposed in [13]. The
circuitry and Antenna [2]. To achieve reliable and efficient relatively large sizes in the aforementioned designed make the
data transmission, the implantable antenna unit is considered structure unsuitable for implant application. An implantable
an important component in the WIMD system [3]. PIFA based antenna structure operating on 400 and 915 MHz
In recent times, extensive research on developing im- band has been reported in [14] with dimension of 280 mm3 .
plantable antenna can be found in the literature [1], [4], To achieve more miniaturization, circular shaped multiband
[5]. However, many challenges, such as miniaturization of antenna is proposed in [15] with overall dimension of 63.61
the antenna unit, reliable communication link between the mm3 . It should be noted that, insted of the full ground, most
WIMD and external unit etc, are still open. Apart from these, of the aforementioned work consist of several slots and defects
high permittivity and electrical loss of the human tissue also in the ground plane. The defects or slots in the ground plane
affect the nearby electronic circuitry due to the near field
leakage current. On the other hand, a complete ground is also
utilized to support the antenna in order to lessen the effect
of variations in the integrated device’s and human tissues’
dielectric characteristics on the antenna’s performance [16].
To overcome this problem, in [17], a circular polarized (CP)
antenna is reported with dimension of 9.8 × 9.8 × .889 mm3 .
It is also observed that, to address the issue of the mismatch
in antenna orientation, several aforementioned works are re-
ported antenna with CP characteristics [9], [15]–[17]. But a
recent research has revealed that the CP wave experiences the
depolarization impact while navigating the complex structure
of human tissue [18]. A linearly polarized implanted antenna
is more pertinent in this context [18].
Inspired by the aforementioned criterion, in this paper, a
miniaturized dual-band linear polarized implantable antenna
with full ground plane is presented. The proposed antenna,
consisting of vertical and horizontal slots, shorting pin and full
ground, is operating at 915 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequency band
having a volume of 45.87 mm3 . Furthermore, for the patient’s
safety, the specific absorption rate (SAR) is monitored and
simulated SAR is within the limit. The simulated responses Fig. 2. Evaluation Stages of the proposed antenna. (a) Schematic of the each
are experimentally validated in the minced pork and there is stages (b) S11 response of the each stages (c) Input impedance of the Final
agreement between the simulated and measured results.
antenna .

II. D ESIGN M ETHODOLOGY

the skin. The antenna structure is excited by a 50 Ω coaxial
The proposed implantable antenna is shown in Fig. 1. The
cable. The antenna structure consists of horizontal and vertical
antenna is fabricated over a 0.254 mm thick dielectric substrate
slots, shorting pin and full ground. the cross-section view of
with permittivity (εr ) of 10.2 and dielectric loss tangent
the antenna structure is also shown in Fig. 1. Due to this full
of 0.0035. A superstrate layer of similar dielectric constant
ground structure, near-field radiation from the antenna does
and thickness to cover the top radiating patch layer. In this
not affect the circuit component located beneath the ground
design, a high dielectric material is chosen for substrate and
plane. The Optimum dimension of the proposed antenna is
superstrate so that it helps to miniaturize the antenna profile by
enlisted in the caption of Fig. 1.
shorting the guided wavelength [19]. The design and analysis
of the antenna structure is performed inside the human skin A. Evaluation Stages
phantom with a relative permittivity of 41.33 and conductivity In order to understand the radiation performance and minia-
of 0.872 S/m [20]. The antenna is embedded at the centre of turization techniques of the proposed antenna, the various
the HSP with an implant depth of 3 mm from the surface of development stages and their corresponding responses are
shown in Fig. 2. Initially, a square-shaped patched antenna
with diagonal feeding is considered as shown in Fig. 2(a).
It is observed from Fig. 2(b) that the antenna of stage 1
is resonating at 4.5 GHz frequency. It is well-known that,
feeding the square patch in the diagonal position, excites the
degenerate mode inside the patch [21]. To achieve dual-band
functionality, a horizontal slot is included in stage 2. This
horizontal slot provides different electrical path lanes on the
two orthogonal mode. As a result, antenna in the stage 2
resonated at 2.5 GHz and 4.2 GHz frequency bands. To achieve
more miniaturization, a vertical pair slot is etched from the
radiating patch as shown in Stage 3 of Fig. 2(a). Due to this
vertical slot, the higher frequency band shifted to 3.2 GHz
without creating any disturbance in the lower frequency band.
It should be mentioned that the position of the vertical slot
Fig. 1. Schematic of the implantable antenna. The geometrical parameter of
the antenna: Wsub = Lsub = 9.5 mm, Wp =Lp = 9 mm, Ws1 = 1.2 mm, is fixed by monitoring the surface current density over the
Ls1 = 2.55 mm, Ls2 =3.2 mm, Ws2 = 0.6 mm, Wsh = 0.8 mm, Xs = Ys patch. For the sake of brevity, the surface current distribution
= 1.1 mm, h = 0.25 mm. . for each stage is not presented in this paper. In the next step,
a pair of L-shaped slots and a open-ended slot are included in
the patch. The geometrical parameter and the position of each
slot provide a significant effect on the antenna performance.
It is noticed from Fig. 2(b) that at stage 4, the antenna is
resonating at the 2.4 GHz frequency band and at the 2.1
GHz frequency band, another mode is generated. However, at
stage 4, the antenna does not show any resonance at the 915
MHz frequency band. Finally, at stage 5, a metallic shorting
pin is embedded in the substrate as shown in Fig. 2(a). The
shorting pin is placed in a position where the surface current
density is maximum. Due to this inclusion, the lower frequency
band is shifted to the 915 MHz frequency band whereas,
the higher frequency band is tuned to 2.45 GHz. It should
be noted that the position of the via plays a significant role
to tune the frequency of operation. The input impedance of
the final antenna is shown in Fig. 2(c). The real part of the
input impedance of the implantable antenna is around 50 Ω
whereas the reactance part is around 0. The aforementioned
phenomenon satisfies the resonance condition of the antenna.
To comprehend the radiation behaviour of the suggested Fig. 3. Surface current distribution over the top and ground plane (a) at 0.915
GHz and (b) at 2.45 GHz .
antenna, the surface current distribution across the implanted
antenna’s top and bottom planes was observed, and the re-
sults are displayed in Fig. 3. Since the implantable antenna
resonates in several frequency ranges, we must monitor the
surface currents at 2.45 GHz and 0.915 GHz and shown in
Fig. 3(a) and 3(b), respectively. It can be stated from the
surface current distribution that, at different frequencies, the
antenna exhibits different radiation modes. At 0.915 GHz,
the surface current over the top plane exhibits a consistent
direction of current flow. On the other hand, in the ground
plane, the surface current direction is opposite to the top
plane. This phenomenon indicates that at 0.915 GHz, the
proposed antenna operates in quarter wavelength monopole Fig. 4. Radiation pattern of the antenna (a) at 0.915 GHz and (b) at 2.45
mode. Conversely, the top plane’s current reverses direction GHz .
once at 2.45 GHz, suggesting that the antenna functions in
a half-wavelength mode at these frequencies. The radiation
pattern of the implantable antenna in both E and H planes is Where, σ(r) is the conductivity of the tissue and E(r) is the
shown in Fig. 4. electrical field vector. In the eq (1), the M indicate the Mass
of integrated region ( i.e, 1 g or 10 g)
B. Safety analysis It should be noted that the SAR analysis was conducted
For the implantable antenna system, the safety analysis in the HSP model and Head model at all the frequency band
should be performed rigorously. When an antenna is implanted of operation for 1W input power as shown in Fig. 5 and 6
in the body to transmit electromagnetic energy, the surround- respectively. For the HSP model, maximum SAR of 484 w/kg
ing tissues absorb the energy, which might be harmful to and 147 w/kg was observed for 1 and 10 g model at .915 GHz.
patients if the absorption exceeds specified safety criteria [22]. Whereas, for 2.45 GHz, the maximum SAR value for HSP
It is critical to assess the dangers related to the proposed model with 1 and 10 g model was 413 w/kg and 169 w/kg
antenna-integrated IMDs in order to guarantee patient safety. respectively. We also monitor the SAR value by implanting
One such standard by which to measure the security of the antenna inside the head phantom as shown in Fig. 6. The
implanted antennas is the SAR. For 1- and 10-g of tissues, maximum SAR for 1g and 10 g HSP model at .915 GHz
espectively, the maximum average SAR shall not beyond was 671 w/kg and 192 w/kg, and for 2.4 GHz was 793 w/kg
the limitations of 1.6 and 2 W/kg set by the IEEE safety and 243 w/kg, respectively. The proposed antenna allows an
standards (IEEE C95.1-1999, IEEE C95.1-2005). The average input power of up to 4 mW (1-g) and 10 mW (10 g) at 2.45
SAR value can be calculated as [22] GHz, which is much greater than the permitted power of 25
µW for implantable antenna. The fabricated prototype and
1
Z
1
Z measurement setup is shown in Fig. 7. The measurement result
SARavg = SAR(m)dm = σ|E(r)|2 dv (1) showing good agreement with the simulated results.
M 2M
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