Capacitively Loaded Circularly Polarized Implantable Patch Antenna for ISM Band Biomedical Applications

A single-fed miniaturized circularly polarized microstrip patch antenna is designed and experimentally demonstrated for industrial-scientific-medical (2.4-2.48 GHz) biomedical applications. The proposed antenna is designed by utilizing the capacitive loading on the radiator. Compared with the initial topology of the proposed antenna, the so-called square patch antenna with a center-square slot, the proposed method has the advantage of good size reduction and good polarization purity. The footprint of the proposed antenna is 10 x 10 x 1.27 mm. The simulated impedance, axial ratio, and radiation pattern are studied and compared in two simulation models: cubic skin phantom and Gustav voxel human body. The effect of different body phantoms is discussed to evaluate the sensitivity of the proposed antenna. The effect of coaxial cable is also discussed. Two typical approaches to address the biocompatibility issue for practical applications are reported as well. The simulated and measured impedance bandwidths in cubic skin phantom are 7.7% and 10.2%, respectively. The performance of the communication link between the implanted CP antenna and the external antenna is also presented.