Low-UWB Antennas in Vicinity to Human Body

This paper gives an insight of an on-body study using Low-UWB (lowest mandatory UWB band of IEEE 802.15.6 standard) directive antennas. Investigations are first carried out by simulations with male and female voxel models with different antenna body separation distances. The antenna performance is assessed in close proximity to a human body in terms of return loss, impedance matching, directivity, realized gain and efficiencies. The on-body matching results were confirmed by measurement with different real persons. Later, a free-space propagation study was conducted to assess the far-field antenna performance and to serve as a reference for on-body studies. Finally, an on-body propagation study is presented for different antenna positions with different separation distances from the body.