A Compact Double-Layer On-Body Matched Bowtie Antenna for Medical Diagnosis

A compact double-layer Bowtie antenna optimized for medical diagnosis is presented in this paper. This on-body antenna is matched to the human body to allow more energy to be radiated into the human body to obtain stronger reflections for image processing. By using a Bowtie antenna with double layers as well as a folded structure and meandered microstrip lines at the bottom of the antenna, a small size of 30 × 30 mm² with a size reduction of 40% is achieved, compared to the reference antenna of 50 × 50 mm² within the same operational frequency range. After the optimization of the antenna parameters, the antenna is characterized from 0.5 to 2 GHz, where the low frequencies enable a high penetration into human body and the large frequency range contributes to a high bandwidth and hence a fine range resolution. The simulated and measured results are shown with respect to the impedance matching, near-field pattern, gain and SAR distributions. With features such as a very small size, very low operational frequency, high front-to-back ratio, this design shows a high potential for use in medical diagnosis of stroke, breast cancer and water accumulation detection in the human body.