The 8th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2014)

Design of a Novel Compact Printed Folded Dipole

Antenna for Biomedical Applications
Sofia Bakogianni and Stavros Koulouridis
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Patras, Patras, Greece
sofiam@ece.upatras.gr, koulouridis@ece.upatras.gr

Abstract—In this study, a human tissue-implantable compact
folded dipole antenna of 19.6 * 2 * 0.254 mm3 operating in the
Medical Implant Communication Service (MICS) frequency
band (402-405 MHz) is presented. The antenna design and
analysis is carried out inside a homogeneous flat phantom with
electrical properties equivalent to those of 2/3 human muscle
tissue. The dipole antenna, printed on a high-dielectric substrate
layer, exhibits a frequency resonance at 402 MHz with a wide 10-
dB impedance bandwidth of 105 MHz. The proposed antenna
radiates an omnidirectional far-field radiation pattern with a
maximum realized gain of -31.2 dB. In addition, the Specific
Absorption Rate (SAR) assessment indicates the maximum input
power deliverable to the antenna in order to meet the required
safety regulations.
Index Terms—folded dipole antenna, miniaturization,
homogeneous phantom, Medical Implant Communication
Service (MICS) band
The objective of this paper is to present a simple compact
folded dipole antenna immersed into a human tissue-
simulating model, operating at MICS frequency band, which
could be integrated into an implantable medical device. A
dipole antenna with a miniaturized size (19.6 mm by 2 mm by
0.254 mm) is designed using a folding technique. Ansys High
Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) software platform is
utilized for numerical calculations in order to examine the
antenna resonance and radiation characteristics [12].
This paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the
antenna design and the equivalent tissue-simulating model. In
section III, the simulation results, including antenna resonance
and radiation performance, as well as specific absorption rate
(SAR) and communication link estimation, are featured.
Conclusions follow in Section IV.

I. INTRODUCTION II. ANTENNA DESIGN AND SIMULATION TISSUE MODEL

Over the recent years, implantable medical device systems,
such as cardiac pacemakers or deep brain stimulators, have
been transformed into vital biomedical tools for controlling,
measuring and collecting medical data in the natural
environment of the patient via wireless communication. The
advancement of such devices requires a compact low-profile
integrated antenna enabling transmission of valuable medical
information (e.g., blood pressure, glucose and temperature)
between the implanted medical device and an external
communication module [1], [2]. It is important that, the
antenna should operate at the Medical Implant Communication
Service (MICS) band of 402-405 MHz frequency range, which
is specifically allocated for short-range wireless biomedical
applications. This frequency band is regulated by the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) and the European
Radiocommunications Committee (ERC) for ultra-low power
active implanted medical systems [3], [4].
Several implantable compact antennas have been proposed
in the literature for biotelemetry applications in the MICS
frequency band. Microstrip or planar inverted-F antennas
(PIFA) with miniaturized design and enhanced bandwidth have
been presented in [5]-[7]. Antennas operating in the 2.40-2.48
GHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band have been
also investigated [8]-[10]. Moreover, in [11], the design and
performance of a dual band antenna have been examined for
such biomedical applications.
A. Antenna Geometry
The configuration of the developed symmetric folded
dipole antenna operating at MICS frequency band is shown in
Fig. 1. The proposed antenna, fed in the center of its structure
by means of a 50 ȍ line, consists of a metal strip of 0.1 mm
width and is bent into a folded pattern. The radiating structure
is printed on a high-dielectric substrate (Rogers RT/duroid
6010, İr=10.2, tanį=0.0023) of 0.127 mm thickness (t) and is
covered with a superstrate layer of same characteristics.
Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed implantable compact dipole antenna
operating at 402 MHz, with L=19.6 mm, W=2 mm and thickness= 0.254 mm.
The overall size of the antenna is 19.6 (L) * 2 (W) * 0.254
(2t) mm3. The length L of the proposed antenna is 0.026Ȝ0 and
the width W is 0.0027Ȝ0 (Ȝ0 is the free space wavelength) at
402 MHz band operation. The feeding source gap is 1 mm and
the total trace length is about 90 mm.

978-88-907018-4-9/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE 3178

 The 8th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2014)

In this study, miniaturization of the antenna is III. SIMULATION RESULTS

accomplished by folding the dipole arms. This scheme allows
the lengthening of the current flow path on the antenna and,
thus, reducing the resonant mode frequency. Folding enhances,
also, the impedance matching by increasing the inductance of
the antenna through the proper arrangement of 4 L-shaped
loading sections, and compromising the capacitance created by
the antenna downsizing. As depicted in Fig. 2, the introduction
of the 4 symmetric L-type conducting strips significantly
increases the antenna input reactance compared to the
respective one exhibited by the antenna structure comprising
only of the symmetric dipole arm AB (see Fig. 1).
A. Antenna Resonance Performance
Fig. 4 illustrates the simulated S-parameter performance of
the designed folded dipole antenna inside the cubic phantom.
The resonant frequency is 402 MHz and the calculated S11 is
lower than -20 dB. It is obvious, that the antenna exhibits, also,
a wide 10-dB impedance bandwidth of 105 MHz, covering the
desired frequency band.

Fig. 2. Antenna input impedance (Zin) values of five antenna structures at 402
MHz .

Moreover, as the area occupied by the antenna inside an

implanted medical device is a crucial factor, the adjacent
dipole antenna radiating parts are closely spaced. This fine
structure makes the antenna design and impedance matching a
complicated procedure. The required impedance tuning can be
achieved by choosing suitable geometrical parameters. The
optimal parameter values for the antenna configuration of Fig.
1 are listed in Table I.
TABLE I. OPTIMAL GEOMETRICAL PARAMETERS OF THE
PROPOSED DIPOLE ANTENNA (see Fig. 1)
Fig. 4. Simulated reflection coefficient characteristic of the developed antenna
embedded into the 2/3 muscle-tissue numerical model (see Fig. 3).
Under specific implantation scenarios (e.g. skin and muscle
tissue), resonance frequency detuning is likely to arise. The
proposed antenna geometry, thus, has to be modified by
altering its geometrical parameters in order to enhance
performance.

B. Simulation Tissue Model

Antenna performance analysis is carried out inside a
simplified homogeneous tissue model substituting the human
body. A 2/3 muscle-equivalent cubic phantom is employed
with dimensions of 150 * 150 * 150 mm3. The dielectric
constants of the simulation model (İr=42.8, ı=0.64 S/m) are
evaluated at 402 MHz [1]. Fig. 3 depicts an image of the
designed antenna embedded into the center of the tissue-
simulating medium.

Fig. 5. Calculated antenna input impentance Zin varying with the geometrical
Fig. 3. Overview of the numerical 2/3 muscle-equivalent tissue model
parameter (a) IJ, and (b) HI, respectively.
enclosing the proposed antenna at 402 MHz (in scale).

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 The 8th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2014)
Indeed, altering the arm length IJ (see Fig. 1) can greatly
modify the reactance of input impedance Zin while resistance
remains rather unchanged, as shown in Fig. 5 (a). The
reactance of Zin is increased due to the increase in the
inductive loading, and the antenna resonance variates
considerably, as the variable IJ ranges from 1.3 to 7.3 mm.
According to Fig. 5 (b), the variation of the arm length HI from
0.2 to 0.5 mm makes the resonant frequency to be slightly
shifted, while the resistance of Zin remains constant,
contributing to the fine-tuning of the proposed implantable
antenna in the operating frequency range.
B. Antenna Radiation Performance
The simulated far-field gain radiation pattern of the
implanted dipole antenna is shown in Fig. 6. It can be observed
that the radiation pattern is omnidirectional and the antenna
presents a peak realized gain of -31.2 dB at 402 MHz when it
is placed at the center of the homogeneous phantom. The
exhibited azimuthal antenna radiation pattern, that also
contains the maximum gain, is given in Fig. 7. At the same
plane minimum gain is found -33.5 dB.
Fig. 6. Simulated far-field gain radiation pattern for the designed dipole
antenna at 402 MHz when it is located at the center of the cubic phantom (see
Fig. 3).
Fig. 7. Azimuthal far-field gain radiation pattern (xy-plane) for the designed
dipole antenna at 402 MHz located at the center of the phantom (see Fig. 3).
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The antenna presents, also, a low radiation efficiency of
0.037%. This can be attributed to the loading effect of the
surrounding medium, as well as to the undergone antenna
miniaturization. For example, 10% reduction in the radiation
efficiency of the embedded antenna has been calculated
relative to the respective efficiency of the unfolded, straight
dipole antenna of same total trace length.
C. Special Absorption Rate (SAR) Evaluation
For the assessment of safety performance issues, the 1-g
and the 10-g peak averaged SAR values are calculated. When
the antenna is assumed to deliver 1W, its simulated peak 1-g
and 10-g averaged SAR values are 419.58 W/kg and 94.91
W/kg, respectively. However, in order to satisfy the IEEE
regulations regarding the SAR limitations (1-g averaged SAR
value of 1.6 W/kg and 10-g averaged SAR value of 2 W/kg)
the delivered input power should be limited to 3.81 mW
(§5.81 dBm) and 21.07 mW (§13.24 dBm), respectively [13],
[14]. Fig. 8 depicts the 1-g averaged SAR distribution over the
xy plane for 5.81 dBm input power.
Fig. 8. Simulated 1-g averaged SAR distribution over the xy-plane of the
folded dipole antenna located into the center of the 2/3 muscle tissue-
emulating medium (see Fig. 3).
D. Calculation of Communication Link
A wireless communication link is established between the
proposed implantable compact antenna (transmitter) and an
external half-wavelength dipole antenna (receiver) at 402
MHz. In the case of far-field wave propagation, the delivered
power Pr at the receiving dipole antenna (gain Gr of 2 dB) can
be calculated as:
Pr[dBm] = Pt[dBm] + Gt[dB] + Gr[dB] - PL[dB] (1)
where Pt is the incident power at the transmitting antenna of
gain Gt (maximum Gt,max or mean Gt,mean value over the
azimuthal plane). The available input power Pt is limited by
the IEEE SAR regulations and is set to 5.81 dBm, ensuring
simultaneously an effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP)
below -16 dBm [15]. PL is the path loss and is assessed by the
long-distance model [16]:
 The 8th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2014)
PL(d)[dB] = 10nlog(d/d0) + 10log(4ʌd0/Ȝ0)2 + Ȥı[dB]
where n is the path loss exponent, d is the distance between
the transmitting and the receiving antenna (d=1-5 m), d0 is a
reference distance set to 1 m, Ȝ0 is the free-space wavelength
and Ȥı is the shadowing factor set to 0 dB.
Three propagation scenarios are considered, as shown in
Fig. 9: (a) free-space (n=2, Gt,max=-31.2 dB), (b) line-of-sight
(n=1.5, Gt,mean=-32.3 dB), and (c) non-line-of-sight (n=3,
Gt,mean=-32.3 dB), respectively [17], [18]. From the numerical
results, the line-of-sight scenario provides a more reliable
communication performance, followed by the free-space and
the non-light-of-sight propagation.
Fig. 9. Calculated delivered power Pr at 402 MHz (black line: free space, grey
line: line-of-sight, and red line: non-line-of-sight propagation, respectively).
In the case of a down-link transmission, the external and
the implantable dipole antennas function as a receiver and
transmitter, respectively. The maximum delivered power to
the transmitting dipole is restricted by the EIRP value and is
evaluated as:
Pt[dBm] = EIRP[dBm] - Gt[dB] = -16 - 2 = -18 dBm
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, an implantable compact printed dipole
antenna resonating at 402 MHz has been presented. Folding of
the dipole arms leads to antenna miniaturization (occupied
volume of 9.95 mm3) exhibiting, though, superior radiation
characteristics as compared to the implanted antennas found in
literature. The reflection coefficient, when the antenna is
embedded into the tissue-simulating 150 * 150 * 150 mm3
cubic model, is -23.8 dB and the 10-dB impedance bandwidth
is 105 MHz. The proposed antenna has a peak realized gain of
-31.2 dB, when it is placed at the center of the cubic model,
and achieves an omnidirectional radiation pattern. Simulation
results, also, indicate that the proposed antenna satisfies the
SAR limitations, as long as the input power is confined to
values below 5.81 dBm, and can establish a reliable
biomedical communication link.
In our future work, numerical calculations of the antenna
resonance and radiation characteristics when implanted into an
anatomical human body model will be conducted [19], [20].
The robustness of the antenna will be, additionally,
investigated into different tissue environments. The study will
(2) be fulfilled with the construction of the designed antenna and
the confirmation of the simulation results via experimental
measurements.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research has been co-financed by the European Union
(European Social Fund – ESF) and Greek national funds
through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong
Learning" of the National Strategic Reference Framework
(NSRF) - Research Funding Program: Thales. Investing in
knowledge society through the European Social Fund.
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