Wearable Polarization Conversion Metasurface MIMO Antenna for Biomedical Applications in 5 GHz WBAN

This paper presents a wearable metasurface multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna for biomedical applications in a 5 GHz wireless body area network (WBAN) with broadband, circular polarization (CP), and high gain. The physical properties of the MIMO antenna element and the principles of polarization conversion are analyzed in-depth using characteristic mode analysis. For the proposed MIMO antenna, the measured -10 dB impedance bandwidth is 34.87% (4.76-6.77 GHz), and the 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth is 22.94% (4.9-6.17 GHz). By adding an isolation strip, the measured isolation of the two antenna elements is greater than 19.85 dB. The overall size of the MIMO antenna is 1.67λ₀ × 0.81λ₀ × 0.07λ₀ at 5.6 GHz, and the maximum gain is 7.95 dBic. The envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) is less than 0.007, with the maximum diversity gain greater than 9.98 dB, and the channel capacity loss is less than 0.29 b/s/Hz. The specific absorption rate (SAR) of the wearable MIMO antenna is simulated by the human tissue model, which proves that the proposed antenna conforms to international standards and is harmless to humans. The proposed wearable metasurface MIMO antenna has CP, broadband, high gain, low ECC, and low SAR, which can be used in wearable devices for biomedical applications.