Open AccessWearable self‐tuning antenna for emergency rescue operations
Author(s) -
Baroni Andrea,
Nepa Paolo,
Rogier Hendrik
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
iet microwaves, antennas and propagation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.555
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1751-8733
pISSN - 1751-8725
DOI - 10.1049/iet-map.2015.0315
Subject(s) - backup , antenna (radio) , impedance matching , wearable computer , computer science , software , electrical impedance , return loss , antenna tuner , real time computing , engineering , electronic engineering , embedded system , electrical engineering , radiation pattern , telecommunications , antenna efficiency , programming language , database
In this study, the design, hardware implementation and characterisation of a self‐tuning 406 MHz antenna of a Cospas‐Sarsat personal locator beacon are presented. The realised prototype is able to perform automatic tuning of the antenna under time‐varying environmental conditions due to human body movements and sea water proximity. The impedance tuning is performed by tracking the instantaneous value of the reflection coefficient and by modifying an appropriate impedance matching network according to a real‐time adaptive algorithm. A resilient default/backup software architecture has been designed to ensure that tuning guarantees a return loss higher than 10 dB for the personal locator beacon in most of impedance mismatching conditions.