Microstrip Antenna Arrays for Implantable and Wearable Wireless Applications

Flexible microstrip antenna arrays have become a necessity in today's miniaturized biomedical wireless devices. Implantable and wearable biomedical devices such as pacemakers, drug delivery systems, heart rate monitors, and respiratory monitors need to communicate with exterior base station devices and relayed to healthcare professionals. In this paper, multiple flexible microstrip antenna arrays are designed and simulated for these applications. The frequency bands of 5.2 GHz and 5.8 GHz are utilized to provide a high bandwidth communication link. CST Microwave Studio was used for the modeling and simulation of the antennas. The reflection coefficient, gain, and correlation coefficient for each antenna are presented and discussed. The presented antennas can be utilized together as an array for enhanced gain or independently in a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) system.