Dual-Band Frequency Reconfigurable Microstrip Patch Antenna on Wearable Substrate for Wi-Fi and Wi-MAX Applications

Abstract

In this paper the design of wearable dual band frequency reconfigurable microstrip patch antenna is presented for wireless communication services (i.e. Wi-Fi at 2.44 GHz and WiMAX at 3.54 GHz). For body-worn and wearable applications, the antenna is employing 1 mm thick Denim Jeans textile material as a substrate with dielectric constant of 1.7 and loss tangent of 0.0001. The proposed microstrip patch 3 antenna with volume of 105.38×90×1 mm has been reconfigured using optical switches to operate at two different frequencies depending upon the switching mode. The antenna operates at single band mode at 2.44 and 3.54 GHz frequency bands, when the switches the switches are ON and OFF, respectively. The proposed structure has an operational bandwidth of 2% (50 MHz) and 1.13% (40 MHz) at the resonant frequencies of 2.44 and 3.54 GHz, respectively. Better impedance matching characteristics with input impedance in acceptable range of 51-52.5 Ω and VSWR nearly equal to 1.05 has been provided by the proposed antenna. Directional gains of 5.73 and 9.17 dB are achieved at 2.44 and 3.54 GHz frequencies, respectively with maximum efficiency of 94.6%. Proposed wearable frequency reconfigurable dual band microstrip patch antenna has the capability to be used in wearable, medical, safety, rescue, body-worn, security and military applications. The proposed microstrip antenna is designed, simulated and analysed in Computer Simulating Technology Microwave Studio employing Finite Integration Method.