On-Body Wearable Antenna Performance Due to Different Medical Bandage Materials as the Substrates

The paper analyses the effect of different medical bandage materials that are commercially available in the medical industry as the antennas' substrate. Simulated magnitude of the reflection coefficient |S11| have shown noticeable deviation on the return loss and the resonant frequency due to different types of flexible substrate materials. Different types of medical bandage materials are characterized in terms of permittivity and loss tangent using open-ended coaxial probe method. Results have shown notable variation of approximately 12 % on the dielectric properties values due to the body proximity. The presented work may give an insight for the development of wearable telemedicine devices specifically in telemedicine system application.