Design and development of low-profile polymer based broadband antenna for on-body applications

• A compact and geometrically simple antenna based on polydimethylsiloxanes (PDMS) substrate is proposed. • The proposed design has a thick substrate layer of 0.5 mm, and 0.035 mm thick radiative layer. • Antenna offers wideband of 3.25–6.75 GHz, along with high gain and radiation efficiency. • To validate the performance of antenna for wearable application conformal analysis and SAR analysis are performed. • Results of antenna are also compared with recent published literature. A compact, low profile, geometrically simple, flexible, and wideband antenna is presented for future on-body applications. A circular patch antenna is loaded with multiple arc-shaped stubs to obtain an ultrawideband of 3.7–6.25 GHz. The antenna is fabricated on a flexible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate having a relative permittivity of 2.77 and a thickness of 0.5 mm. A conformal analysis of the antenna is conducted to validate the performance of the antenna under various bending conditions to make it suitable for on-body applications. Later on, the specific absorption ratio (SAR) is also carried out to verify antenna outcomes placed on human chest phantoms. Simulations are carried out using CST Studio Suite®, and simulated results are validated by the measured results from a fabricated prototype. The outcome of the proposed antenna is also compared with recent published work in the literature, which shows the proposed antenna is one of the best candidates for future flexible and on-body applications.