Research Article
On the Design and Performance Analysis of Flexible Planar
Monopole Ultra-Wideband Antennas for Wearable
Wireless Applications
Deepa Thangarasu ,
1
Rama Rao Thipparaju,
1
Sandeep Kumar Palaniswamy ,
1
Malathi Kanagasabai ,
2
Mohammed Gulam Nabi Alsath ,
3
Devisowjanya Potti ,
4
and Sachin Kumar
1
1
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology,
Kattankulathur 603203, India
2
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University,
Chennai 600025, India
3
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, SSN College of Engineering, Chennai 603110, India
4
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham,
Chennai 601103, India
Correspondence should be addressed to Sandeep Kumar Palaniswamy; vrpchs@gmail.com
Received 21 July 2022; Revised 29 August 2022; Accepted 1 September 2022; Published 26 September 2022
Academic Editor: Shobhit K. Patel
Copyright © 2022 Deepa angarasu et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
With the promising developments in wearable communication technology, attention towards flexible electronics is increasing
day-by-day. is study presents flexible low-profile ultra-wideband (UWB) antennas for wearable applications. e antenna
comprised of a modified dewdrop-inspired radiator and a defected ground plane and has an impedance bandwidth of
3.1–10.6 GHz. e antenna flexibility is investigated using four different substrates (polyester, polyamide, denim, and Teslin) and
tested on a cotton shirt and a high-end Res-Q jacket to evaluate their performance stability for body-worn applications. e
fabricated planar dewdrop-shaped radiator (PDSR) antennas have a radiation efficiency of >90%, a gain of >4 dBi, and a group
delay variation of fewer than 0.5 ns. e antenna conformability is measured by placing the fabricated antennas on various curved
and nonplanar parts of the human body. e aforementioned antennas offer better flexibility for different bent conditions. e
specific absorption rate (SAR) of the designed antennas is investigated to determine their wearability, and values are found to be
less than 0.2 W/Kg. Also, the received signal strength (RSS) is discussed in order to analyze signal attenuation, and the per-
formance analysis of the antennas is compared.
1. Introduction
Wearable wireless electronic systems are becoming in-
creasingly popular around the world. Particularly, wireless
body area networks (WBANs) play a significant role in
sports, healthcare, and defense applications [1, 2]. An an-
tenna is an essential element in wearable electronic trans-
ceivers for establishing effective communication among
users. For the WBAN, an international standard IEEE
802.15.6 has been established to support both wideband and
narrowband communications [3]. ough the standard
includes various frequency bands, for research, the Indus-
trial Scientific and Medical (ISM) band at 2.4 GHz and ultra-
wideband (UWB) ranges from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz are highly
preferred. Moreover, the choice of substrate is important for
WBAN applications, as it should be flexible and unaffected
by the aesthetic nature of human clothing. Hence, the an-
tennas must exhibit better radiation characteristics even
Hindawi
International Journal of Antennas and Propagation
Volume 2022, Article ID 5049173, 14 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/5049173