Enhancement of PIFA Top Loaded Monopole Antenna for WBAN with Diversity Features

Abstract

Wireless body area network (WBAN) has become a major field of interest for researchers due to the increasing applications in personal communications systems, where devices can be carried in the user’s pockets or attached to the user’s body. In any wireless device, the performance of radio communications depends on the design of an efficient antenna. Diversity antenna has been used to overcome fading and interference that affect the reliability and quality of service of wireless links. The objective of this thesis is to enhance a diversity antenna suitable for use within WBAN terminals at the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band at 2.45 GHz. To satisfy the environment of WBAN where different natures of the received signals are present, a planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) and a top loaded monopole antenna are used. Professional software design High Frequency Structural Simulator (HFSS) is used to design and to study the effects of each parameter in the antenna performance. Parasitic elements have been used to enhance the impedance bandwidth of the top loaded monopole antenna and folded slots in the PIFA ground have been used to reduce the mutual coupling between the two antennas and to enhance the impedance bandwidth of PIFA. The antenna performance in the presence of the human body was also investigated.