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Wearable Beam Steering Branch Line Coupler Fed Array Antenna for WBAN Applications

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Abstract

This paper, introduce a wireless body area network antenna array with beam steering that is fed by a branch line coupler (BLC). The proposed BLC feeding network and the antenna are fabricated on wearable jeans substrate, and the proposed antenna operates at the ISM-I (2.45 GHz) band. The Branch line coupler fed array antenna (BLCAA) allows for 25° of beam steering with a half-power beam width of 25° and 35° in the presence of free space and the human body, respectively. The proposed antenna’s specific absorption rate was found to be 0.21 W/Kg, which complies with IEEE regulations. To assess the effect of bending on the antenna's performance, simulations and tests were conducted, revealing that the antenna’s characteristics were minimally affected by bending. The BLCAA exhibits good impedance matching with high peak gain and a good radiation pattern. The simulated results are experimentally validated and found good approximation.

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Data Availability

The datasets analyzed during the research are not publicly available as they are original but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.”

Code Availability

Not applicable.

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Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of ECE, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Off Campus, Patna, 800014, India

    Ankur Utsav & Ritesh Kumar Badhai

Authors
  1. Ankur Utsav
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  2. Ritesh Kumar Badhai
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception, design, and analysis. Design simulation, analysis, hardware development, and experiments were performed by Ankur Utsav and Ritesh KB. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Ankur Utsav and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”

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Correspondence to Ankur Utsav.

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Utsav, A., Badhai, R.K. Wearable Beam Steering Branch Line Coupler Fed Array Antenna for WBAN Applications. Wireless Pers Commun 133, 1887–1904 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-023-10851-0

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