Research Article
Computational Modeling of the Bent Antenna in an On-Body
Mode Using the Cylindrical TLM Approach
Jugoslav J. Jokovi´ c , Tijana Z. Dimitrijevi´ c , Aleksandar S. Atanaskovi´ c ,
and Nebojˇ sa S. Donˇ cov
Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Niˇ s, Aleksandra Medvedeva 14, 18 000 Niˇ s, Serbia
Correspondence should be addressed to Jugoslav J. Jokovi´ c; jugoslav.jokovic@elfak.ni.ac.rs
Received 2 March 2022; Accepted 26 July 2022; Published 6 September 2022
Academic Editor: Mohammad Yaghoub Abdollahzadeh Jamalabadi
Copyright © 2022 Jugoslav J. Jokovi´ c 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.
is paper presents the suitability and computational features of the cylindrical TLM approach, when it is used as an accurate and
efficient alternative for the analysis of the bending effect on performances of the antenna operating in an on-body mode. A design
goal was to create the model of the rectangular patch antenna wrapped around the part of a cylinder, which can be used to
represent a human body (torso, leg, or arm) and simultaneously to model dielectric properties of muscle tissue. Moreover, the
paper illustrates problems in terms of accuracy and limitations when the antenna deformation is modelled by using numerical
methods based on the cubic mesh. e advantages of the cylindrical TLM method over the rectangular TLM approach have been
emphasized through an analysis of how the bending affects the resonant frequency of the antenna.
1. Introduction
Biomedical engineering (BME) has been a hot research topic
in the past few decades. A number of problem-solving
techniques of engineering have already found useful ap-
plications in biology and medicine, leading to many ad-
vanced BME devices [1, 2]. ese devices can contribute to
better quality of human health and care when used in di-
agnostics, treatment, or studies of treatment and recovery.
Currently, there is a wide range of BME products of various
complexities and applications, and they can be in general
classified as either diagnostic or treatment devices.
One of the key components in many BME devices is an
antenna, which can be placed near to, inside, or on a human
body [3]. For devices employed for diagnosis or treatment,
one or more antennas are usually placed near to and around
the human body, e.g., for microwave resonant imaging
(MRI) and microwave imaging (MI) diagnosis [2, 4] or for
hyperthermia treatment [5]. e antenna can also be
implanted into the human body either directly or through a
capsule travelling through the body [6] or it can be posi-
tioned on the human body, e.g., placed on a garment or
mounted directly over the torso [3] in order to form a bio-
wireless sensing and communication system for on-body or
off-body transmission links [7]. e design of majority of
these antennas faces with physical constraints such as size,
power, and safety limitations, which can overall affect the
efficiency of the BME device itself.
Focusing on antennas deployed on the different parts on
the human body (so-called on-body and wearable antennas),
either embedded into human skin or clothing (e.g., textile
antennas), other challenges in their design exist, such as the
close proximity of the human body leading to antenna
detuning, disturbing the antenna impedance and reducing
the antenna gain and efficiency [8, 9]. Also, variations of
human body posture and motions in everyday activities are
causing a number of deformations such as stretching,
twisting, bending, and crumpling or more often a combi-
nation of two or more of these deformations. As a result of
deformed antenna geometry, many antenna parameters
change like shifting resonant frequency, changing gain,
radiation pattern, and polarization [9].
In literature, the impact of cylindrical bending on mostly
printed textile antenna performances has been dominantly
Hindawi
Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2022, Article ID 8486740, 7 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8486740