A Miniaturized Circularly-Polarized Antenna for In-Body Wireless Communications

A novel miniaturized single-fed circularly-polarized (CP) microstrip patch antenna operating in the Industrial, Scientific, Medical (ISM) band of 2.40–2.48 GHz, is comprehensively proposed for implantable wireless communications. By employing reactive loading in the arrow-shaped slotted patch to form slow wave effect and embedding V-shaped slots into patch to lengthen the current path, the proposed implantable antenna is minimized with the overall dimensions of 9.2 mm × 9.2 mm × 1.27 mm. The radiation patterns of the proposed antenna illustrate the performance of left-handed circular polarization. The simulated results show that an impedance bandwidth of 7.2% (2.39–2.57 GHz) and an axial ratio bandwidth of 3.7% (2.39–2.48 GHz) at the ISM band are achieved, respectively. Ex vivo measured results are in good agreement with the corresponding simulated ones.