Flexible and Compact AMC Based Antenna for Telemedicine Applications

We present a flexible, compact antenna system intended for telemedicine applications. The design is based on an M-shaped printed monopole antenna operating in the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) 2.45 GHz band integrated with a miniaturized slotted Jerusalem Cross (JC) Artificial Magnetic Conductor (AMC) ground plane. The AMC ground plane is utilized to isolate the user's body from undesired electromagnetic radiation in addition to minimizing the antenna's impedance mismatch caused by the proximity to human tissues. Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) is analyzed using a numerical human body model (HUGO) to assess the feasibility of the proposed design. The antenna expresses 18% impedance bandwidth; moreover, the inclusion of the AMC ground plane increases the front to back ratio by 8 dB, provides 3.7 dB increase in gain, in addition to 64% reduction in SAR. Experimental and numerical results show that the radiation characteristics, impedance matching, and SAR values of the proposed design are significantly improved compared to conventional monopole and dipole antennas. Furthermore, it offers a compact and flexible solution which makes it a good candidate for the wearable telemedicine application.