A novel implantable Planar Inverted-F Antenna for biomedical applications

In recent years, the Wireless Body Area Network WBAN has emerged over the world as a new technology for medical applications. The advent of technology and concern for the patient´s comfort lead to extreme miniaturization of medical devices. This miniaturization is not done without the degradation of the antenna´s performance. This paper presents a novel design of rectangular Planar Inverted-F Antenna (PIFA) for biomedical application in Medical Implantable Communications Service band MICS (402-405) MHz. The use of MICS band is of great importance. It is dedicated just for implantable medical applications thus the risk of interference is minimal. Different miniaturization techniques are combined with the use of high dielectric (substrate/superstrate) to fulfill a tradeoff between size and performances. The proposed antenna is characterized by a good performances and a small size 11.9*14.7*1.2 mm³ compared to other implantable antennas in the literature.