A Differentially Fed Implantable Antenna with

Circularly Polarization for Biomedical Telemetry

Bing Li and Xiong-Ying Liu
School of Electronic and Information Engineering
South China University of Technology
Guangzhou 510641, China
State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Nanjing 210096, China
liuxy@scut.edu.cn

Abstract- A new differentially fed circularly polarized (CP)

patch antenna is designed. The proposed antenna operates at the
2.40–2.48 GHz industrial-scientific-medical (ISM) band whose
center frequency is 2.45 GHz. Utilizing differential feeding, it can
interface directly with radio frequency integrated circuits.
Cutting asymmetry square-shaped slots on the radiating patch
and truncating two cross-shaped slots on the ground plane,
impedance matching with S11 < -10 dB and circular polarization
with axial ratio (AR) < 3 dB are achieved simultaneously over the
bandwidth of 130 MHz, covering 2.37–2.50 GHz. The proposed
antenna has a compact dimension of 9.8 9.8 1.27 mm3and a
great potential for the biomedical telemedicine applications.

I. INTRODUCTION

Wireless implantable devices have been used widely to send

biomedical information to health stations that help doctor
make diagnoses and treatments. Nowadays, with the
contribution of implantable antennas, patients can be
monitored remotely even if they are not physically touched.
Though utilizing the technology of circular polarization,
multipath interference and polarization mismatch can be
suppressed during signal transmitting via far-field RF-linked
telemetry. Meanwhile, the performance of bit-error rates can
be enhanced with the technology of circular polarization,
instead of linear polarization.
Plenty of CP implantable antennas have been investigated
in recent years. A square antenna stuck in the middle of two
layers of dielectric plates for implantable wireless
communications has been presented in [1], it takes use of
symmetrical slots and meander slits to realize circular
polarization and miniaturization. In [2], a helical antenna with
multilayer axial mode at 2.45-GHz ISM band has been
designed for wireless capsule endoscopes application,
realizing miniaturization through high relative dielectric
constant substrate. A CP antenna for biomedical application
at ISM (902–928 MHz) band has been given in [3], it could
realize good impedance and CP property through optimizing
the feeding locations, shorting and ground size.
In this paper, a miniaturized differentially fed implantable
CP at ISM band is presented. A method of differentially
feeding to realize CP is introduced to the design of an
implantable antenna. By etching two cross-shaped slots in the
square ground plane, the AR bandwidth can be broadened to
Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed antenna at (a) Top view, (b) Bottom
view, (c) Side view.
cover the whole 2.45-GHz ISM band.
II. ANTENNA GEOMETRY
The geometrical structure of the proposed antenna is
displayed in Fig. 1. The antenna radiation patch is stuck in the
middle of two same layers of Rogers 3010 with a dielectric
constant r of 10.2, a loss tangent tan of 0.0035, and a
thickness of 0.635 mm. Two differentially feeding ports locate
in the diagonal symmetrically, the position are at a distance of
d with respect to the x-y axis. For a normal square patch with
diagonal feeds, both modes of TM10 and TM01 are excited with
the same amplitude. By truncating two unequal length slots on
the opposite sides of the square radiation patch and properly
select the widths of the slots, they are tuned 90° out of current
phase [4]. A square slot in the patch, having two perturbation
corners with a dimension of p × t, and a symmetrical cross slot
on the ground plane with a dimension of k1 × w1 are
introduced to further broaden the bandwidth and miniaturize
the size, respectively. Two differentially feeding ports are
connected to 50- coaxial cable.
Fig. 2 shows the simulation model of the proposed
implantable antenna. The single skin layer phantom’s
electromagnetic properties are given at 2.45GHz. After
adjusting the dimensions, the optimal geometric parameters
are eventually obtained, as listed in Table I, with aid of
 TABLE I
DETAILED DIMENSIONS OF THE PROPOSED ANTENNA
-25
Parameter Value (mm) Parameter Value (mm)
Lc 9.3 w 0.4
-30
p 1.75 t 1
m 3.75 g 6.2
d 2.5 r 3.5 -35
d1 3.35 d2 3.35
k1 5 w1 1.1
-40
L 9.8

-45 RHCP-xz-plane
LHCP-xz-plane

-180 -120 -60 0 60 120 180

Theta (deg.)
(a)

Fig. 2 Simulation model: HFSS skin phantom. -25

0 8

-30

2.45-GHz band
-5 6
-35

-10 4 -40

-45 RHCP-yz-plane
-15 2 LHCP-yz-plane

(S11-S12-S21+S22)/2
-180 -120 -60 0 60 120 180
Axial Ratio
Theta (deg.)
-20 0
2.30 2.35 2.40 2.45 2.50 2.55 2.60 (b)
Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 4. Realized gain radiation patterns in two principle planes at 2.45 GHz.
Fig. 3. Differentially reflection coefficient and AR.
IV. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS
ANSYS HFSS simulator. In this paper, a compact, wide AR bandwidth, CP
implantable antenna has been proposed. Two pairs of slots is
III. SIMULATION RESULTS truncated to excite the TM10 and TM01 mode in order to
As pointed out in [5], a conventional two-port system can achieve CP radiation. The center slots in both patch and
be simplified to a single differentially fed port. As for ground plane are employed to further enhance circular size
symmetrical structures, the differentially reflection coefficient reduction and impedance matching. Simulated results show
is odd mode reflection coefficient. Then the differentially that the volume (9.8 × 9.8 × 1.27 mm3) and AR bandwidth
reflection coefficient dif expression can be inferred as (5.31%) have been improved, whereas -10-dB impedance
following equation bandwidth (4.49%) is deteriorated as compared the designed
antenna in [1] (cubic volume of 10 × 10 × 10 mm3, 1.63% for
1 3-dB AR bandwidth and 7.7% for -10-dB impedance
dif
( S11 S12 S 21 S 22 ) . (1)
2 bandwidth).
The simulated reflection coefficient and axial ratio at the In the next works, a prototype will be fabricated and an in-
main radiation direction of the proposed antenna are illustrated vitro measurement will be included. The link budget analysis
in Fig. 3. The simulation impedance bandwidth covers from and the specific absorption rate (SAR) discussion will be
2.38 to 2.49 GHz for a differential reflection coefficient of less studied in the following works.
than -10 dB. And the AR bandwidth is in the frequency range
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
of 2.37–2.50 GHz with AR 3 dB.
As depicted in Fig. 4, the cross-polarization discrimination This work was supported in part by the National Natural
exceeds 25 dB at 2.45GHz over a wide beamwidth (15 dB Science Foundation of China (61372008), in part by the
between ±30°). The realized peak gain in one-layer skin Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
phantom is almost -22.7 dBi at center frequency. (2014ZZ0031), and in part by the Science and Technology
Planning Project of Guangdong Province (2014A010103014).
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