MINIATURIZED WEARABLE FRACTAL ANTENNA FOR MILITARY APPLICATIONS AT VHF BAND

This paper presents the design and development of Koch fractal dipole antenna for wearable applications at 450 MHz. Common jeans cotton is used as a flexible substrate material having a dielectric constant of 1.6 for the design and fabrication of the proposed antenna. Increasing the number of iterations increases the number of sections, which eventually results in 32% reduction in size. Size miniaturization is obtained using second iteration Koch geometry with the antenna bandwidth of 10%, and the return loss of 25 dB is achieved under the flat condition. The investigations are to characterize the antenna not only in flat condition, but also under different bendings and crumpling conditions. The proposed Koch fractal antenna is close to the proximity of the body, and the absorption of electromagnetic power on human body is also examined. It is found that the Specific Absorption rate (SAR) is much below a safety level of 0.119 W/kg and hence suitable for wearable applications.