Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Materials Today: Proceedings

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Wearable microstrip patch antennas with different flexible substrates

for health monitoring system
Subhadra Panda, Anshul Gupta, Bibhudendra Acharya ⇑
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, NIT Raipur, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In the field of health monitoring system, the design of wearable antennas provides global monitoring and
Received 16 May 2020 communications. To meet the requirements of wearable antennas, properties like flexibility, cost and
Received in revised form 23 August 2020 data transmission rate should be taken care. This paper represents the design and simulation for U-
Accepted 2 September 2020
shaped slot rectangular microstrip patch antenna (RMSA) using high frequency structure simulator
Available online xxxx
(HFSS) and analyzed their performance with different flexible substrates. The RMSA is designed using
other flexible substrate materials such as Epoxy, Teflon, Polyethylene, polyamide, RT Duroid and PDMS
Keywords:
to manage the operation frequency of 2.4–2.6 GHz. The parameters like reflection coefficient, bandwidth,
Polydimethylsiloxane
RMSA
radiation pattern, gain and cost of antenna are analyzed by keeping all substrates of same height. The pro-
Flexible substrates posed antenna in which PDMS is used as substrate material, found suitable for health and weight mon-
HFSS itoring systems.
Health monitoring system Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Con-
ference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

1. Introduction detects the change in indoor environment. Recently, research on

Health care is considered as inviolable human right and have
given the most essential part of our daily routine which is taking
some part of our expenditure. It is also affecting the public services
in many sectors because one needs to run hospitals which affect
time, traffic, finance and work. Not only the public sectors it also
affects the elderly persons in most situations. So to avoid such type
of problems, one efficient and low cost technical solution is health
monitoring system [1]. This technology helps the patient to avail
the needed medical assistance as per his preferable place rather
than a costly nursing home.
So, in this regard, health monitoring system is considered as the
key strategies for comfortable, good quality and low cost health
care. Wireless technology is the key factor for health monitoring
system [2–6]. At the state of the art, many solutions are there
which identify different health parameters and extract information
looking to change in habitat behavior. In paper [4], it was pre-
sented that, a system consists of microwave radar sensor and a
wirelessly connected base station for data processing which
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: bacharya.etc@nitrr.ac.in (B. Acharya).
wireless body area networks (WBANs) has been developed for both
medical and non medical field applications. Wearable antenna has
drawn the attention as it is a centre point for wireless sensor in
biomedical application. The challenges behind antenna designing
for health monitoring system and biomedical applications are to
be planar, light weight, flexible, non toxic and low cost. Wearable
medical devices are used to measure the body signals like electro-
cardiogram (ECG), electroencephalogram (EEG), and body temper-
ature etc. There are many diseases such as hormonal imbalance,
diabetes, tuberculosis, thyroid; patients suffer from unexpected
weight gain or loss. In order to avoid such problems, patients need
to take concern from doctor every time. When patient will use a
weighing machine having wide band antenna with wireless sensor
network facility, it is not required to go to hospital regularly as the
status of health can be effortlessly observed at home. Biomedical
devices in which antenna are used should be stretchable as it is
used on wrist, near heart, on foot etc. Wearable antennas are
mounted on patients’ bodies (inside/outside on the clothes) for
transmitting the patients’ body parameters (such as body temper-
ate, heart rate, etc.) and measured using various sensors/transduc-
ers. There are many challenges in designing and implementing
wearable antenna on human body such as size and shape of
antenna, flexibility, right placement of wearable antenna on

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.09.127
2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

Please cite this article as: S. Panda, A. Gupta and B. Acharya, Wearable microstrip patch antennas with different flexible substrates for health monitoring
system, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.09.127
S. Panda, A. Gupta and B. Acharya Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

body/cloth, good radiation patterns and impedance matching. In U- ent flexible substrates like Epoxy, Polyamide, Teflon, RT-duroid
shaped slot patch antenna, band width and data rate are higher 5880 and Polyethylene are used for designing the RMSA with
hence transmitting and receiving signal is faster. So it is suitable HFSS SOFTWARE to operate in 2.4 GHz resonant frequency and
in wearable patch antenna. The factors which improve the perfor- their performance are analyzed and compared for health moni-
mance of antenna depend upon the design and materials of the toring system.
devices. The microstrip patch antenna is having radiating patch,
conducting ground plane and a substrate between these two layers 2. Antenna design
is a dielectric material. Flexible substrate materials have been used
for health monitoring system, biomedical and antenna applications RMSA has various applications in different medical and non
should be electrically, chemically and mechanically stable to adjust medical fields. Although it has some disadvantages like narrow
with changing body posture [7–8]. bandwidth and more copper loss at higher frequency but also have
Material used in the device is one of the factors for its better advantages like easily printable on circuit board, light weight, low
performance. Nowadays polymer nanocomposites are mostly used profile planar configuration and less fabrication cost. In this
because of its dielectric properties and flexibility. The electrical, design, substrates are inserted among the conducting ground
mechanical and chemical properties of polymer nanocomposite plane and radiating patch which can be copper, silver or aluminum
have been changed with the amount and type of nanofillers used etc. Limitation of RMSA antenna is its narrow bandwidth which
in the polymer [9]. Adding of nanofillers in the polymer increase can be resolved by using U-shaped slot cut on the radiating patch
the surface area and conductivity of the nanocomposite but and it is best suitable structure for patch antenna and applied for
decreases the flexibility of material. PDMS, Epoxy, Polyethylene, Polyamide, RT-Duroid, Teflon materi-
Permittivity value of the substrate is one of the important als as flexible substrate. With this structure design and fabrication
factors for the performance of microstrip patch antenna. Sub- of antenna will be easier on application point of view. Design
strates having low permittivity give better results for return loss equation for geometry of antenna has been taken into considera-
and directivity and likewise substrate with high permittivity tion to find out the length and width of the patch, substrate
results in antenna miniaturization [10–12]. Permittivity value dimensions, and effective dielectric constants. The microstrip
of polymer nanocomposite is adjustable by changing the concen- patch antenna is light in weight, low volume, smaller in dimension
tration of nanofiller added. Doping of low amount nanofiller and easy for fabrications which are the necessary criteria for
offers larger surface area by retaining its processability and flex- wearable antenna. U slot behaves as a serial capacitor which helps
ibility. In current time, the researchers give emphasis on light in impedance matching. The main advantage of using U slot is that
weight and stretchable antennas because of giving high effi- it gives broad band characteristics. To feed the RMSA, microstrip
ciency at low cost. Preparing dielectric nanocomposite by intro- line feed technique is used and impedance is matched to 50 O.
ducing nanoparticles in the polymer matrix is a challenging The dielectric properties of PDMS like dielectric constant and loss
attempt as it provides good dielectric strength and flexibility in tangent value of the material are er ¼ 2:68 and tand = 0:04
terms of mechanical properties and adjustable permittivity in respectively [26].
terms of electrical properties. In this paper, a rectangular microstrip patch antennas having
Circuit miniaturization is a trend of modern electronics. Nano- resonant frequency at 2.4 GHz are designed on flexible substrate
filler in the polymer are in nanometer scale results in thin film of using HFSS software. In our work, a simple patch antenna with
dielectric, large surface area and causes circuit miniaturization U-shaped slot is designed by taking different types of flexible sub-
[13–14]. Size of the wearable electronic devices should small strates and various antenna parameters are analyzed [27] and their
because it is either used in cloth or directly attached to the properties are represented in Table 1. In present study different
human body for monitoring the real time activities [15]. A nor- materials have taken for a comparative study. The design goals
mal microstrip patch antenna has a dielectric substrate which are to improve the flexibility and bandwidth of antenna. Design
is inserted between the conductive ground plane and a radiating constraint was the impedance matching which is solved by U-
patch. U-shaped slot cut up from the patch results in reduced shaped slot in the patch.
size antenna and enhanced return loss and bandwidth of the By using transmission line model, the length (L) and width (W)
antenna [16]. U-shaped slot microstrip patch antenna generates of the patch, effective dielectric constant (ereff Þ and the substrate
higher order mode which overlaps the original bandwidth and dimensions etc. are calculated. Width and length of the patch can
gradually increases the overall bandwidth of the antenna [17] be calculated by using following parameters [28].
and used for wireless biomedical applications [18–19]. Antenna
in biomedical devices should be flexible and durable as it is worn 2.1. Width of patch (W)
in foot, in wrist and near heart etc [20–22]. Polydimethylsiloxane
(PDMS) is an elastomer dielectric material used in biomedical
C
device as it is chemically and thermally stable, non toxic and W¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð1Þ
ðer þ1Þ
flexible. When conductive filler like multi-walled carbon nan- 2f 0 2
otube (MWCNT) is doped in the polymer matrix, it behaves as
semiconductor with some peculiar electrical, mechanical and
dielectric properties which can be used for various applications
[23–24]. Table 1
Performance of antenna depends upon the height of the sub- Properties of different substrates.
strate, its dielectric constantðer Þ; loss tangent (tandÞ, stability Substrates Dielectric Loss tangent Operating Height
towards chemicals, flexibility and weather resistant capacity constantðer Þ (tandÞ frequency (GHz) (mm)
[25]. Low dielectric permittivity substrate when used in antenna PDMS 2.68 0.04 2.4 2.5
results in low return loss and higher bandwidth as it behaves as Epoxy 4.2 0.02 2.5 2.5
better insulator and capable to resist the insertion of electrons Polyethylene 2.25 0.001 2.5 2.5
into it. The intention of this work is that the applications of Polyamide 4.3 0.004 2.5 2.5
RT Duroid 2.2 0.0009 2.4 2.5
PDMS have been judged to use it as advanced materials in elec-
Teflon 2.1 0.001 2.6 2.5
tronic devices like antenna. PDMS material and other five differ-
2
S. Panda, A. Gupta and B. Acharya Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

where, C is presenting speed of the light in free space and f 0 is the

operating frequency.

2.2. Effective dielectric constant (ereff Þ

Fringing field has importance to obtain the effective dielectric

constant (ereff Þ. As the fringing field in the region of the radiating
patch is not restricted within the substrate so value of dielectric
constant ðer Þ is more than the effective dielectric constant (ereff Þ.
To calculate the effective dielectric constant the following equation
is given.
 12
ereff =ðer2þ1Þ+ðer21Þ 1 þ 10h
w
(2)where, w (mm), h (mm) and er (Fm-
1) are the width, height and dielectric constant of the substrate
respectively.

2.3. Length of the patch ðlÞ

The length of the radiating patch determines the operating fre-

quency so it is an important factor to design the antenna. Length of
Fig. 1. 2D view of PDMS base rectangular microstrip U shaped slot patch antenna
the patch ðlÞ is calculated as with microstrip line feeding technique [All dimensions are in mm: Ls = 65.6,
Ws = 74.1, Lp = 37.7, Wp = 48.2, Lf = 19.6, Wf = 6.8, and W3 = 2.08].
c
leff ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi  2dl ð3Þ
2f 0 eereff
where, dl is the extended length and the extension is due to the
fringing field and expressed as
 
ðereff þ 0:3Þ wh þ 0:264
ðdlÞ ¼ 0:412h w  ð4Þ
ðereff  0:258Þ h þ 0:8

 
2.4. Substrate dimension lg andwg
 
Dimensions like length and width lg andwg of both the sub-
strate and ground plane depends upon the dimensions of patch
and height of the substrate which can be calculated from the next
equations.

lg ¼ l þ 6h and wg ¼ w þ 6h ð5Þ

3. Simulation results

The rectangular microstrip patch antenna (RMSA) with U-

shaped slot has been designed, simulated and optimized by HFSS
software and the results are analyzed. The design of antenna gen-
erated by HFSS software having all the dimensions has shown in
Fig. 1. Reflection coefficient (S1110 dB), radiation pattern (for-
 
phi ¼ 0 and90 Þ;gain and bandwidth have analyzed and discussed
for each antenna with different flexible substrates. The proposed
flexible antennas are chosen to operate at 2.4 GHz operating fre-
quency. Here the intention is to analyze the simulation based
results.
Return loss is characterizing the input and output of signal
source and it represents the power which is lost in the load [29].
The higher the return loss number, the better the impedance
match and the closer it is towards the desired impedance. The
reflection coefficient graphs for the different flexible substrates
have shown in Fig. 2 and among the substrates taken here, PDMS
achieved the maximum value of S11 that is 34.05 dB. As the loss
tangent of the PDMS substrate is highest for which it require low
profile (roughness) copper to achieve good strength between the
patch (copper) and the substrate results in maximum return loss
due to the skin effect of conductors. So from the simulated result
it is concluded that PDMS is the most preferable substrate which
is having balanced value of dielectric constant and loss tangent giv-
3
Fig. 2. Reflection coefficient versus frequency graph.
ing better result and polyethylene is showing the minimum value
of return loss i.e. 20.04 dB.
Bandwidth is calculated from the Fig. 2 by taking the difference
between the lower and higher resonant frequency across 10 dB
line. Enhancement of bandwidth (BW) for PDMS substrate is show-
ing maximum value of 90 MHz.
3D polar plot has shown in Fig. 3 is representing that there is
uniform radiation in all direction. E-plane and H-plane should have
difference of 900. Usually direction of co-polarization is in the way
of E-field and cross-polarization is in the way of H-field.
Co-polarization on cross polarization is defined for the radi-
ating E-plane and H-plane. Simulated radiation pattern at
(phi = 00 and 900) for various flexible substrates have shown
in Fig. 4 and in all the figures cross polarization in H-plane is
below 10 dB with respect to co-polarization. All the substrates
are showing the stable radiation pattern. Performances of all
the antennas with different flexible substrates are presented
in Table 2. The simulation result of PDMS substrate is showing
highest bandwidth compared to others, causing higher data
transmission rate.
S. Panda, A. Gupta and B. Acharya Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 3. 3D polar plot of antenna for the substrate (a) PDMS, (b) Epoxy, (c) Polyethylene, (d) Polyamide, (e) RT Duroid, (f) Teflon.

4
S. Panda, A. Gupta and B. Acharya Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 4. Radiation pattern for different flexible substrates (a) PDMS, (b) Epoxy, (c) Polyethylene, (d) Polyamide, (e) RT Duroid, (f) Teflon.

5
S. Panda, A. Gupta and B. Acharya Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 2 Acknowledgements
Performance comparison of different flexible substrates.

Substrate Operating frequency Bandwidth Return loss Gain The authors are thankful to the Director, NIT Raipur, India, for
(GHz) (MHz) (dB) (dB) providing financial support from TEQIP-III and facilities.
PDMS 2.4 90 34.05 3.2
Epoxy 2.5 70 24.36 3.3 References
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The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-

cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.