A modified interdigital EBG reflector for wireless body area network applications

A modified, compact, and via-less interdigital electromagnetic band gap cell intended for wearable application at medical body area network (MBAN), and Wi-Fi bands is reported in this article. The reflection phase of the proposed EBG unit cell is then investigated to design a reflector consisting of 3 × 2 array of EBG cells for an efficient radiation of a planar monopole antenna. The size and shape of the EBG unit cell has been designed in such a way that it achieves 0° reflection phase with minimum dimension of 14.3 and 15.34 mm along x-axis and y-axis, respectively. Subsequently, the surface wave rejection ability of the EBG incorporated ground plane is also studied and presented in this article. A planar monopole antenna incorporating the proposed EBG reflector at MBAN frequency exhibits gain, and efficiency of 6.4 dB, and 95%, respectively, and has net dimension of 34 mm × 55 mm × 4.67 mm along x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis, respectively. Finally, specific absorption rate (SAR) analysis carried out for one layer, homogenous model, and three-layer, heterogeneous model, shows a considerable reduction in SAR values for 0.5 W of power fed to the antenna. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through good agreement between the simulated and the experimental results.