A Conformal Monopole Hair-Like Epidermal Antenna for Multitasking Implantable IoMT Applications

In this paper, a monopole hair-like epidermal antenna (MHLEA) is presented for wireless implantable medical devices (IMDs) in Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) applications. The antenna operates in the ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) band with a monopole structure at 2.45 GHz. Unlike conventional epidermal or implantable antennas, the proposed antenna is placed directly on the skin tissue. The realized gain of the antenna is obtained as 0.81 dBi which is quite satisfactory compared to current similar studies in the literature. The design and analysis of the antenna are carried out using a human arm model and a seven-layer head model that represent realistic human tissues. The antenna was fabricated to validate the simulated and theoretical results, and the variation of S11 was measured on real human skin. Especially in terms of volume (15.61 mm3tiny size), realized gain (0.81 dBi), highly safe Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), and a monopole-like radiation pattern, the MHLEA demonstrates powerful capabilities and is a strong candidate for bio-telemetry and IoMT applications. Additionally, the link budget was obtained theoretically and discussed comparatively for a basic communication link, including the proposed MHLEA.