Quad-Element Implantable MIMO Antenna for Wireless Capsule Endoscopy

Compared to antennas bearing a single port, MIMO antennas with several ports enable higher data throughput by exploiting spatial diversity. This capability is essential for next-generation implantable medical devices, where high channel capacity is a key requirement. A quad-element implantable MIMO antenna is designed and practically validated at 1420 MHz in this paper. It occupies a compact volume of 7×8×0.1 mm3 (5.6 mm3). The compactness is realized by combining high-permittivity substrate (Rogers 3010 with relative permittivity of 10.2) with meandered radiator paths, which increase the effective current length while maintaining a small physical size. All antennas have very small mutual coupling with isolation of more than 31.78 dB, which is mainly due to the spacing of 1 mm between the elements and the substrate, which is thin. The peak realized gain for each antenna element is -27.3 dBi. The simulation is performed within a capsule-like structure, which is embedded in the stomach tissue model. The experimental verification is carried out by embedding antenna within minced meat. The ECC, channel capacity, and link margin are also evaluated and found to be satisfactory. The proposed antenna ensures reliable communication performance, with the transmission range being as high as 2.5 m, link margin being 15 dB, and the data rate being 120 Mb/s. The proposed antenna ensures a good level of ECC, which is less than 0.1. The SAR is 52.3 W/kg at 1420 MHz. This design is favorable for implants because of the small size, good impedance matching, high isolation, low correlation, good level of gain, and good link performance.