Wearable antenna design inspired by metamaterials

In the last decade, Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) have attracted more and more attention in many sectors of society, e.g. medical monitoring, emergency rescue services, physical training, care for children and the elderly, etc. As a critical component in these systems, the wearable antenna plays a key role for the wireless communication with other devices on or off the body. However, wearable antennas have different characteristics compared to the traditional ones. Advanced technologies and design methods are necessary. Meanwhile, the study of metamaterials has achieved huge success in the design of conventional antennas. A great number of antennas have been designed with novel properties, e.g. multiple bands, multi-functions, low profile, and compact size. Some of these novel features are very attractive in wearable applications. This project plans to link these two topics together, for the first time, and to clearly show that metamaterials are very advantageous for wearable radiators, and to promote the development of the wearable antenna. A methodology will be developed for the design of metamaterial inspired wearable antennas with properties like wide bandwidth, multiband operating, and reconfigurability. The influence of the human body will be modeled and studied in full detail. The targeted result is a design flowchart accompanied by dedicated measurement methods, which can provide better performance for the WBAN system.