The Effect of a Metamaterial Based Wearable Monopole Antenna on the Human Body

In this study, design and characterization of a wearable monopole antenna and metamaterial based electromagnetic band gap structure using conductive textile was reported. The pure copper polyester taffeta fabric was used as a conductive textile. The conductive textile based wearable antennas have attracted considerable attention for body centric technologies due to the ability of being integrated with clothes and easily worn. In this respect, the reflection coefficients, radiation pattern, and surface currents for proposed antenna were investigated and its performance was obtained. Then, we designed the electromagnetic band gap structure (3x3 unit cell) and integrated the wearable antenna with this structure. Finally, the specific absorption rate (SAR) values for wearable antenna and integrated structure were analyzed. The SAR values of wearable antenna and integrated structure were obtained as 17.4 W/kg and 0.329 W/kg, respectively. In addition, the electromagnetic band gap structure that has 4x3 unit cell was designed and again the wearable antenna was integrated with this 4x3 structure. Similarly, we obtained the SAR value of new integrated structure as 0.241 W/kg. It was demonstrated that the integrated structures have considerably favorable SAR value for human body. It can be used in many wearable antenna applications with this low SAR value.