An Implantable Antenna for Wireless Body Area Network Application

In this paper, an implantable planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) for an artificial cardiac pacemaker is proposed. The antenna has a simple structure with a low profile and is placed on the top side of the pacemaker. The dimensions of the pacemaker system, including the antenna element, are $42{\times}43.6{\times}11$ mm. When the antenna is embedded in pig tissue, its $S_{11}$ value is -10.94 dB at 403 MHz and the -10 dB impedance bandwidth of the antenna is 6 MHz (399~406 MHz). The proposed PIFA in tissue has a peak gain of -20.19 dBi and a radiation efficiency of 1.12 % at 403 MHz. When the proposed antenna is placed in a flat phantom, its specific absorption ratio (SAR) value is 0.038 W/kg (1 g tissue). Performances of the proposed PIFA is sufficient to operate at the MICS band (402 ~ 405 MHz).