A CPW‐Fed High‐Gain Broadband Textile Antenna for Fall Detection

ABSTRACT A flexible ultrawideband (UWB) antenna is designed to function in the 4–10 GHz band for wearable applications. The propounded antenna demonstrates substantial resistance to physical deformation and human body loading. The monopole antenna with 35 × 35 mm footprint is built using a CPW‐fed tapered multiple stepped microstrip patch with curved ground plane. The proposed wearable design has a stable gain and front‐to‐back ratio (FBR) improvement over an UWB by using a tactically designed wearable frequency‐selective surface (FSS) with its operating bandwidth coinciding with that of the antenna. The reflective FSS is placed 13 mm below the primary radiator to enhance the gain of the textile antenna by 6 dB across a fractional bandwidth of 90%. The FSS causes 69% reduction of specific absorption rate (SAR) and enhancement of FBR ranging from 12.7 to 20.3 dB. The FSS integrated antenna has a radiation efficiency of 75% when placed 0.07 λ away from the human phantom. Results from simulations and experiments show that the proposed antenna is a suitable candidate for wireless body area network (WBAN) applications.