Design and simulation-based performance evaluation of a miniaturised implantable antenna for biomedical applications

Biomedical telemetry is an emerging field of research which enables the formation of a transmission link from inside a living body to an external device. Implantable medical devices are now one of such valuable advancement in the field of biomedical telemetry. Implantable patch antennas are gaining attention and are becoming more of a choice for implantable medical devices that uses mostly RF telemetry. In this work, a state-of-the-art design for a rectangular implantable flexible patch antenna is proposed. The operation band for the antenna is chosen in the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band (2.4-2.4835 GHz). The tiny dimension of the antenna, including the 9.45 m thickness of the patch itself allows the antenna to be highly flexible and provides excellent results even at extreme bent conditions. For simulation environment, a three-layer human tissue model was used, where the antenna was encapsulated between the fat and skin layer. CST Microwave Studio was chosen to design and simulate the antenna. Several performance parameters were simulated, such as the operating resonant frequency, the return loss, radiation pattern, specific absorption rate and also sensitivity of the antenna when introduced to bending.