Microstrip patch antenna integrated with EBG

Wearable antenna facilitates various applications such as telemedicine, fire-fighting and navigation purpose. The wearable antennas are integrated into fabrics and it acts closer to the body hence the back radiations has to be low to prevent human from any harm due to the antennas radiation. Therefore it is necessary to consider the radiation characteristics of the antenna. This paper presents a dual band microstrip patch antenna for wearable applications which operates at 1800MHz and 2.45GHz. The antenna performance is described with integration of Electronic Band Gap (EBG) structure. The microstrip patch antenna and EBG structure are made up of polyester material with a dielectric constant of 1.4 and thickness of 2.85mm. Copper sheets with thickness of 35micron are used as conducting material. The back radiations of the antenna are reduced for both 1800MHz and 2.45GHz respectively after integrating with the EBG structure. The simulated return loss and radiation pattern are presented in this paper for both conditions. The simulated results shows that the radiation characteristics of the proposed design are significantly improved when compared to microstrip patch antenna without EBG. The proposed antenna has a compact size, and operates at dual band making it suitable for telemedicine use in Industrial Scientific Medical band, military and rescue system.