IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 23, NO.

19, 1 OCTOBER 2023 23377

Triple-Band Monopole Textile Wearable

Antenna for IoMT Application
Farah Raad Kareem , Ahmed A. Ibrahim , Senior Member, IEEE,
and Mahmoud A. Abdalla , Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—This work introduces a triple-band all-textile

monopole antenna with coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed and
enhanced gain to be utilized in the wearable Internet of
Medical Things (IMoT) applications to support wireless wear-
able sensors for vital sign monitoring on the human body.
The proposed antenna was backed by an artificial magnetic
conductor (AMC) array structure, which presents an effective
triple operational frequency band. The proposed antenna was
fabricated using a 30 × 30 mm felt material substrate. This
antenna has good characteristics for wearable communica-
tion applications, which is light in weight, small in profile, and
comfortable to wear. The proposed antenna was operated at
2.4, 3.5, and 5.8 GHz for industrial, scientific, and medical
(ISM), 5G, and wireless local area network (WLAN) applica-
tions. A compact antenna design was specifically engineered
to suit the rigorous standards demanded by intricate subsys-
tems operating in those frequency bands for IoMT and 5G applications.
Index Terms— Artificial magnetic conductor (AMC), coplanar waveguide (CPW), Internet of Medical Things (IoMT),
industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM), monopole antenna, wireless body area network (WBAN).

I. I NTRODUCTION in enabling communication between the human body and

HE global Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) market is
T expanding consistently and quickly [1]. It is a group of
medical devices and applications that are connected to online
computer networks that support healthcare IT systems. The
machine-to-machine communication that is the foundation of
IoMT is made possible by medical devices that have Wi-Fi.
IoMT devices connect to cloud infrastructures, allowing for the
storage and analysis of captured data. Because of the increased
interactions between people in different parts of the world,
contagious diseases can spread quickly. The IoMT has made
contactless treatment possible and a reality [2], [3]. IoMT
enables the wireless operation and connectivity of point-of-
care testing (POCT) devices from medical experts, hospitals,
and medical centers. An antenna is considered an essential
component of such biomedical systems. It has a critical role
Manuscript received 14 June 2023; accepted 30 July 2023. Date of
publication 21 August 2023; date of current version 2 October 2023. The
associate editor coordinating the review of this article and approving
it for publication was Dr. Qammer H. Abbasi. (Corresponding author:
Farah Raad Kareem.)
Farah Raad Kareem is with the Electrical and Communication Engi-
neering Department, University of Modern Scenic and Arts, Cairo
12451, Egypt (e-mail: Fkaeerm@msa.edu.eg).
Ahmed A. Ibrahim is with the Faculty of Engineering, Minia University,
Minia 61519, Egypt (e-mail: ahmedabdel_monem@mu.edu.eg).
Mahmoud A. Abdalla is with the Military Technical College, Cairo
43930, Egypt (e-mail: maaabdalla@ieee.org).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2023.3305917
1558-1748 © 2023 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
external equipment [4]. The IoMT and digital healthcare
systems are designed to make it possible for people to receive
high-quality medical care while relaxing in their own homes
or sometimes during work. An interconnected network of
physical objects, or “Things,” is referred to as the “Internet
of Things.” These “Things” are made to exchange data over
the Internet to other devices and systems [5]. As a result,
the widespread adoption of home-based healthcare systems is
IoMT’s primary goal. Patients and physicians now have access
to real-time data due to the development of IoT.
By utilizing effective sensors and communication technolo-
gies, this development has reduced the power consumption of
digital healthcare systems [6]. The technological advances in
the health monitoring industries are made possible by wireless
electronic devices, which consume the least hospital labor and
resources.
However, each wearable device typically comes with
an operating system, a processor, one or more sensors,
a transceiver, and an antenna [7]. For IoT technology [8],
wearable devices with smart features are considered the most
common IoT devices among European Union residents, and
predictions indicate that this trend will continue. In IoMT
applications, the wearable antenna is critical for signal wireless
transmission. Because of various applications for near-field
communication, the integration of electronic components in
textiles has reawakened interest in the last decade [9], [10],

Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 23378
where the antenna is worn as clothing or on the human
body [11]. Wearable antennas should have some specifications
for optimal performance; such as lightweight, compact size,
low cost, high gain and efficiency, maintenance-free, robust,
low specific absorption rate (SAR), and that offer comfort
to wearers [12], [13]. The substrate has changed over time
moving from traditional hard composites to more recent flex-
ible materials and finally to textiles, where the electro textile
materials have found huge use with the evolution of wearable
antennas where they add to the design a higher degree of
flexibility and robustness [14], [15]. Textiles as a material
for a wearable antenna are becoming more appealing and
challenging for scientists in different applications because it
has low weight and high flexibility; in addition, it is easy
to incorporate into clothing and is extremely comfortable to
wear [11]. A textile-based structure with several requirements,
such as low electrical resistance, flexibility, and deformability,
should be used for a wearable antenna [16], polyester cloth
substrate [17], latex [18], polyimide [19], jeans cotton [13],
[20], [21], [22], [23], wool felt [24], and polar fleece [12].
For the conductive part nylon conductive textile “Nora-Dell-
CR” fabric used in [24], conductive textile [embroidered using
332-strand silver-coated Amberstrand fibers (e-fibers)] used
in [25]. Therefore, challenges for achieving miniaturization
and higher gain with a low SAR for the textile antenna are
becoming conspicuous. While miniaturization was used in dif-
ferent ways as a multiband surface slotting antenna [17], [26],
[27], increasing the substrate’s dielectric constant, and loading
special structures. Where for reducing the radiation effect,
various techniques were used as applying the full ground [25],
an antenna placed on a reflector [12], or adding metamaterials;
in [18], [26], [28], and [29], they used artificial magnetic
conductor (AMC) which is one type of the metamaterial.
Electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) backed antenna used in [30],
and high impedance surface (HIS) based antennas used in [31].
The literature reported various single broadband antennas used
for implementing multiple functions off-body communication
applications [22], [24], [32]. However, the wide bandwidth
has an inherent drawback, which is interference with other
wireless systems. Because of its small size and high flexibility,
the planar antenna is preferred for wearable applications
although it provides lower bandwidth when compared to
others [21]. Planar antennas divided into several types can
be used for a wearable antenna as microstrip patches [33],
PIFAs planar inverted-F antennas [24], bow tie antenna [21],
meander line [34], fractals [12], and so on. In recent years,
various multiband antennas have been proposed. Miniaturized
microstrip wearable antenna, loaded with metamaterial, and
the antenna’s exterior is covered by a metal ring introduced
in [35]. Patel et al. [36] present a compact dual parallel S
slotted-patch antenna containing a single offset feed on the
corner right side, with a full ground plane at the bottom.
Triple-band antennas C shape with inverted L-shaped
slots were proposed in [37], where Bluetooth [38] presented
a triple-band switchable frequencies antenna with three
reconfigurable slots in a ground plane. A triple-band integrated
waveguide wearable antenna was shown in [39]. Three-band
planar monopole antenna consists of three open inverted
triangles, and each one corresponding to a band [long-term
Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 23, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2023
evolution (LTE) 1800, wireless local area network (WLAN),
and worldwide interoperability for microwave access
(WiMAX)] was proposed in [19]. Triple-band planar bow-tie
antenna was suggested in [21], where a triple-band microstrip
patch antenna for WLAN applications using the three separate
IEEE 802.11 bands is presented in [40]. To enhance the
impedance characteristic of a triple-band textile antenna,
a split annular ring antenna is used [16]. The open-ring
wearable antenna with triple bands is presented in [41].
A triband monopole antenna with defected ground structure
and a reflecting plate is presented in [42]. Planar slotted
Yagi patch proposed in [23]. Wang et al. [25] present planar
triple-band textile antenna is made up of two asymmetrical
arms with slots and a feeding port between the arms that
includes a loaded loop. As body-centric communication
systems and wearable sensors become more prevalent,
wherefore, when using a wireless device for personal
communication, it is preferable to combine several wireless
communication standards into one device. There are several
coplanar waveguides (CPWs)-fed planar monopole antennas
with variously shaped monopole patches used for multiband
applications [23], [43].
To fulfill the requirements of a wearable antenna for IoMT
applications, one of these requirements, the antenna should
be able to operate across a variety of frequency bands,
where a novel wideband ring antenna used for IoMT [4] or
another high bandwidth antenna with significant gain must be
constructed. Abolade et al. [44] present a compact pair of F-
slots ultra high frequency-radio frequency identification (UHF
RFID) tag antenna based on IoT. A variety of wearable antenna
designs have been investigated especially for IoMT appli-
cations. Khodkar et al. [45] proposed a heuristic conformal
array antenna with an elliptical shape. Atanasova et al. [46]
designed a textile antenna with a reflector built in that
can be incorporated into clothing and accessories. Also,
Barneih et al. [4] produce a wideband ring wearable antenna
for IoMT Applications. Meanwhile, Loss et al. [7] suggested
a textile antenna for IoT communications. Wearable antenna in
IoMT offers higher speeds than traditional applications avail-
able in the hospital, opening up opportunities for multiuser
platform capacity, real-time patient monitoring, and faster
downloads that allow for the quick transmission of large and
continuous imaging files and data analytics. Advanced sensor
technologies are needed to keep up with the development
of wireless wearables in the IoMT market because these
devices will record vital sign data and essential diagnostic
information [47], [48].
As illustrated in Fig. 1, over the human body, there are
numerous wearable sensors, such as a glucose sensor, blood
pressure, heart rate sensor, temperature sensor, humidity sen-
sor, breath rate sensor, and motion sensor. Medical information
is gathered by wearable sensors, whether they are in con-
tact or noncontact. The wearable biomedical network base
station (WBNBS) (wearable antenna) offers data exchange
and storage services, while it acts as an Internet-connected
gateway. When the person is out of an Internet connection
(offline), a memory card can accommodate a lot of data
until the Internet connection is available and then utilizes the
computer to upload this data to the cloud server. Meanwhile,
 KAREEM et al.: TRIPLE-BAND MONOPOLE TEXTILE WEARABLE ANTENNA FOR IoMT APPLICATION
Fig. 1. Layout of suggested application.
in the online case when a mobile network or WiFi network
is accessible, through the use of communication protocols in
the heterogeneous network, data can be automatically sent to
the cloud. In addition, the real-time physical health status can
be shown on the smartphone following a brief preprocessing
by using the protocol for short-range communications, such
as Bluetooth and WiFi [49], [50]. IoMT can connect smart
medical equipment to monitor patient performance in terms
of their vital signs, track the progression of their illnesses,
evaluate their mental health, and predict dangerous pandemics.
This suggested system aids in determining a person’s
physical health as well as whether they have contracted a
pandemic like COVID-19 or monkeypox through the use of
artificial intelligence (AI)-powered algorithms and big data
analysis. For this application, we suggest a thin triple-band
wearable fully textile multiband antenna attached with an
AMC reflector for subtle blending into clothing that can oper-
ate at 2.4 GHz for industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM),
3.5 GHz for WLAN, and 5.8 GHz for WiMAX, an antenna
designed for IoMT application with a small size and used CPW
feeding, which is more practical for wearable applications
because it is easy to integrate with other components; also,
this antenna allows on or off body applications, as shown in
Fig. 1. This textile wearable antenna was created to be attached
to clothing or carried off body on items. The novelty of the
suggested antenna is first, and it is implemented on a thin
flexible conductive and dielectric material that can easily bend
around the human body and be attached to clothes. Second,
it achieved a triple band for IoMT and 5G applications. Third,
it introduced high isolation from human tissue and complies
with safety requirements for medical applications. Finally,
it has a low SAR level, high gain, and directivity compared
to other wearable antennas on textiles.
II. T EXTILE A NTENNA W ITH AMC A RRAY
G EOMETRY AND A NALYSIS
A. Design and Testing of Triple-Band Antennas
Behind the characteristics of the textile antenna in flexibility
and comfortability, it has a low dielectric constant, which
can lessen the antenna’s surface wave losses. Meanwhile,
the application of wearable antennas has to be incorporated
into the human body. However, the electrical properties of
biological tissues and the shape of the human body have
Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
23379
Fig. 2. Steps of design triple-band monopole antenna.
an impact on the antenna’s performance. Traditional solid
materials with a high dielectric constant are failed to meet
these criteria, but materials with a low dielectric constant can
fulfill all of these demands. Also, low-dielectric materials have
a significant impact on bandwidth expansion. The decision was
made to use textile flexible felt out of a variety of substrates,
which satisfied durability, high flexibility, robustness, thermal
endurance, low weight, and comfortability in wearing, in addi-
tion to easy integration, wear resistance, and low cost, where it
has a thickness of 1.5 mm with a dielectric constant of 1.2 and
a dielectric loss tangent of 0.044. While a ShieldIt Super
material with a conductivity of 1.18 × 105 S/m and 0.17 mm
in height is utilized. It was chosen for the radiator part and
ground layer due to its considered high-quality shielding fabric
for radio frequency and microwave shielding. Also, it has a low
resistance of less than 0.1/sq and results in good conductivity.
In addition, it bears a maximum temperature of 200 ◦ C. It is
easy to fabricate just cut and sewn-like ordinary fabric. For
some applications, the triple-band operation with particular
resonating frequencies and bandwidth is essential. The design
steps were started from the square substrate with dimensions
30 × 30 mm, with a simple feedline and two lines as a
monopole, in addition to a partial ground as presented in
Antenna 1 in Fig. 2. The reflection coefficient result of it is
present in Fig. 3. To get to the better length of those two
lines, the design went through three steps until reach to the
optimum dimensions, as presented in Fig. 2. Then, the next
steps were done by increasing the length of those lines and
mender them until reached to the best triple-band result at
the required frequencies, which that achieved at Antenna 4 as
presented in Fig. 2 and their results in Fig. 3.
To study the effect of ground length on the resonance
frequencies, different ground lengths were simulated to check
their reflection coefficient results, as presented in Fig. 4, and
it was observed an effect appears especially in the second and
third bands. Also, the effects of changing the length of L1, L2,
and W 5 on the antenna performance are studied as presented
in Figs. 5–7, respectively, where L1 affects the third band,
while L2 affects both the first and second bands. As well, W 5
concentrates its effect on the second band.
Fig. 8 depicts the suggested triple-band planar monopole
antenna’s configuration geometry, which consists of a classical
 23380
Fig. 3. Reflection coefficient result of design steps.
Fig. 4. Effect of changing the length of Lg.
Fig. 5. Effect of changing the length of L1.
Fig. 6. Effect of changing the length of L2.
square substrate with two rectangular grounds staked on both
sides of the radiator feedline. The overall antenna dimensions
are 30 × 30 mm, referring to its size being small enough to
fit on a human shoulder. The antenna’s construction was done
manually with cutting tools and the conductive layers were
adhered to the substrate by heating since it contains a sticky
layer.
The antenna was fed using a 50- CPW transmission line
and an subminiature version A (SMA) connector that was
glued with conductive ink glow. The conductive ink glow
has properties that make it ideal for the textile antenna.
Several factors may have an impact on the antenna’s resonance
and bandwidth. According to the preliminary design of the
suggested antenna, the dimensions of the steps in the patch
Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 23, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2023
Fig. 7. Effect of changing the length of W 5.
Fig. 8. Proposed triple-band monopole antenna configuration.
TABLE I
D IMENSIONS OF T RIPLE -B AND A NTENNA D ESIGN
and ground plane, the length of the feedline, and the distance
between the feedline and the ground plane are all found to
significantly affect the proposed antenna’s performance. As a
result, the width of the feedline and the air gap between the
feedline and two grounds have the greatest impact on the
input impedance, while the length of the feedline, substrate
dimensions, and patch design dimensions all have an impact
on the frequency’s resonance.
Table I contains the design’s precise dimensions. The mea-
sured return loss results were tested, and the outcomes without
the AMC array were compared to the simulation results.
The proposed triple-band antenna’s result for the reflection
coefficient in free space is shown in Fig. 9; meanwhile,
high agreement between the proposed triple-band antenna’s
simulated and measured operations was attained.
B. Triple-Band AMC Design and Testing
To boost antenna gain and directivity with decreased back
radiation for human safety, the triple-band AMC unit cell is
designed as a reflector in this section [51], which produces
a 0◦ reflection phase to an incident wave in a specific fre-
quency band. Particularly, electromagnetic waves emitted by
the antenna have the potential to be harmful to body tissues.
To adapt this antenna for wearable technology; within the
limits of human health, the AMC unit cell structure aims
to lessen the SAR effect. The design of the AMC unit cell
 KAREEM et al.: TRIPLE-BAND MONOPOLE TEXTILE WEARABLE ANTENNA FOR IoMT APPLICATION
Fig. 9. Simulated and tested reflection coefficient result of triple-band
antenna in free space.
Fig. 10. Configuration of the proposed (a) triple-band AMC unit cell and
(b) triple-band antenna integrated with 2 × 3 AMC array.
TABLE II
D IMENSIONS OF T RIPLE -B AND AMC U NIT C ELL D ESIGN
structure takes into account the antenna’s reflection coeffi-
cient at the requisite frequency bands, where the reflection
coefficient is a factor that establishes the power reflected
from the antenna input due to a mismatch in the antenna’s
impedance, and it is used to assess antenna impedance match-
ing and operating frequency band in antenna design. Fig. 10(a)
presents the geometry of the triple-band AMC unit cell, where
Table II illustrates the design’s dimensions. The AMC unit
cell is designed by using the same materials that are used in
triple-band antenna design.
The AMC unit cell has overall dimensions of 25 × 25 mm,
where it has three square rings with different dimensions to
get the three required frequency bands.
The AMC operates within a bandwidth range of (−90◦ to
+90◦ ) and with a phase of 0◦ at three bands, respectively. The
resonant frequency of the inner square ring with a midslotted
line is approximately 5.8 GHz, the resonant frequency of the
midsquare ring is up to 3.5 GHz, and the resonant frequency of
the outer square ring is up to 2.4 GHz. In Fig. 11, the outcomes
of the electromagnetic full-wave reflection phase simulation
for the AMC unit cell design are displayed. Meanwhile, the
impedance characteristics for the normal incident wave of
the triple-band AMC unit cell are shown in Fig. 12. The
size of the integrated array structure was tested at a different
Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
23381
Fig. 11. Simulation result of AMC cell.
Fig. 12. Impedance characteristics for normal incident wave of
triple-band AMC unit.
Fig. 13. Simulation and measured of reflection coefficient result of
triple-band antenna integrated with AMC array in free space.
array size, where the best result was obtained when integrated
2 × 3 array structure. The geometry of the proposed antenna
integrated with the AMC array structure is presented in
Fig. 10(b). Besides, the benefits of the AMC array, sometimes,
may it have a minor negative impact on how well the antenna
functions, especially in the case of the prototype, the antenna
was fabricated manually, which may lead to some shift in
the frequency band. For that, the reflection coefficient of the
fabricated textile antenna integrated with a 2 × 3 textile AMC
array structure was tested in free space to ensure that the
antenna will function effectively when integrated with AMC.
Fig. 13 shows the simulation and measurement outcomes for
the reflection coefficient parameter of the triple-band antenna
integrated with the triple-band 2 × 3 AMC array structure
in free space. The simulated bandwidth at the three desired
frequency bands ranged from 2.3 to 2.6 GHz, 3.3 to 3.7 GHz,
and 5.65 to 5.9 GHz, while the measured bandwidth ranged
from 2.2 to 2.7 GHz, 3.25 to 4 GHz, and 4.95 to 5.9 GHz,
respectively. Based on the outcomes of the simulation and
measurement, it is established that the proposed antenna inte-
grated with the AMC array structure achieves high agreement
between simulated and measured results and has a wide
frequency bandwidth at three frequencies band, which covers
the center of selected frequency operation bands.
 23382 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 23, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2023

Fig. 16. Triple-band antenna inside the anechoic chamber.

Fig. 14. Simulation of a triple-band antenna’s radiation pattern in free

space at (a) 2.4, (b) 3.5, and (c) 5.8 GHz.

Fig. 15. Simulation radiation pattern of triple-band antenna integrated

with AMC array in free space at (a) 2.4, (b) 3.5, and (c) 5.8 GHz.

III. FAR -F IELD R ADIATION P ROPERTIES

A. Radiation Pattern
Concerning the simulation outcome at the required frequen-
cies, the antenna’s far-field radiation patterns were calculated
for both with and without the AMC array structure attached
to its rear. When the AMC array structure is attached to the
antenna’s opposite side, the pattern graphs demonstrate that
the directivity improves and reduces the electromagnetic waves
that the body is exposed to it. The suggested antenna’s far-field
antenna parameters were chosen to be studied at triple-band
frequencies, where Fig. 14(a)–(c) presents a 3-D simulation
radiation pattern of a triple-band antenna in free space in the Fig. 17. Simulation and measured of normalized gain pattern of
three frequency bands, respectively, and 3-D simulation radi- triple-band antenna in free space for (a) 2.4 GHz at ϕ = 0◦ , (b) 2.4 GHz
at ϕ = 90◦ , (c) 3.5 GHz at ϕ = 0◦ , (d) 3.5 GHz at ϕ = 90◦ , (e) 5.8 GHz
ation patterns of a triple-band antenna integrated with AMC at ϕ = 0◦ , and (f) 5.8 GHz at ϕ = 90◦ .
array structure in free space are presented in Fig. 15(a)–(c),
respectively.
Fig. 16 displays the antenna’s far-field measurement setup B. Antenna Gain and Efficiency Restoration
inside the anechoic chamber. The comparison of radiation Due to the antenna being designed for wireless body area
pattern results from simulation and measurement is shown in network (WBAN) use, the antenna was positioned over a
Fig. 17, at φ = 0◦ and φ = 90◦ for three required bands. human body model to get the results and to make sure the
The outcomes demonstrate agreement in pattern shape and antenna is safe in use. Table III shows the proposed antenna’s
magnitude between the simulated and measured gains. simulated gain results at the triple bands. Table III also illus-

Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 KAREEM et al.: TRIPLE-BAND MONOPOLE TEXTILE WEARABLE ANTENNA FOR IoMT APPLICATION 23383

TABLE III
FAIRFIELD S IMULATED R ESULTS OF THE P ROPOSED D ESIGN

Fig. 18. Simulation and tested reflection coefficient outcome of

triple-band antenna on body.

Fig. 19. Simulation and tested reflection coefficient outcome of

triple-band antenna integrated with AMC array on body.
trated the simulated efficiency result with and without an AMC
array structure at the specified operating frequency bands.
These findings suggest that, due to the high conductivity and
permittivity of the tissues in the human body, the on-body gain
is most likely marginally less than the free space gain.

IV. E FFECTS OF H UMAN B ODY L OADING

When an antenna is worn and brought close to a person,
a wearable antenna emits electromagnetic energy, some of
which may be absorbed by the human body and the human
body may reflect some of the electromagnetic energy too. As a
result, it is important to evaluate how the intended antenna’s
performance will change and how this will affect the human
body. To perform its intended function, the antenna must be
simulated using a 3-D Human Genome Organization (HUGO)
human phantom. The performance of the triple-band antenna Fig. 20. Simulation radiation pattern of triple-band antenna on human
was examined by mounting it to a person’s arm. body at (a) 2.4, (b) 3.5, and (c) 5.8 GHz.
Fig. 18 shows the reflection coefficient outcome of the TABLE IV
suggested antenna on the human body arm, where the results SAR R ESULTS OF THEP ROPOSED D ESIGN
appear there are some shifting occurring in three bands, this
due to the manual fabrication of the antenna, in addition
to the influence of the human body on antenna radiation
is responsible for these discrepancies between simulation
and measurement results. To solve this problem between the
human body and the antenna, the AMC structure was added.
In Fig. 19, the results of the simulated and measured reflection
coefficient of the AMC integrated antenna on human body
arm condition are displayed, which achieved better results than
when the antenna was without AMC. setup for the suggested antenna with and without an AMC
Figs. 20 and 21 present the 3-D pattern of the antenna in array structure, respectively.
the condition of the human body’s arm without and with an
integrated AMC array structure, respectively. A. SAR
The human arm is not a flat surface, so there is typically a Since a portable antenna’s field is always close to the human
2-mm separation between it and the proposed antenna, as pre- body, predicting the radiation intensity that enters the body
sented in Fig. 22(a) and (b), which show the experimental is essential. Any radiant component that is near the body of

Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 23384
A NALYSIS OF THE P ROPOSED A NTENNA IN R ELATION
Fig. 21. Simulation radiation pattern of triple-band antenna integrated
with AMC array on human body at (a) 2.4, (b) 3.5, and (c) 5.8 GHz.
a living thing will unavoidably absorb some of that radiation
from the body tissues. The way tissue reacts to electromagnetic
radiation entirely depends on its metabolic and dielectric
characteristics based on the frequency of the radiation that
was incident. The metric used to assess this is the SAR.
To protect the human body from radiation damage, government
organizations have issued regulations defining and limiting
Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 23, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2023
TABLE V
TOOTHER T RIPLE -B AND W EARABLE A NTENNA W ORKS P UBLISHED
Fig. 22. Position of the proposed antenna on HUGO human phantom
(a) without integrated AMC and (b) with integrated AMC.
the allowable amount of SARs. Its limit of 2 W/kg averaged
over 10 g [52] and 1.6 W/kg averaged over 1 g amount of
tissue [53]. In wearable antenna applications, however, when
calculating SAR values, the whole-body average excludes it
from consideration [54].
Finally, the SAR values of the developed antenna with
and without AMC array structure were determined at triple-
band frequencies. The SAR levels of the proposed triple-band
antenna at the required triple frequencies with and without the
integrated AMC array structure for 1 and 10 g are illustrated
 KAREEM et al.: TRIPLE-BAND MONOPOLE TEXTILE WEARABLE ANTENNA FOR IoMT APPLICATION
Fig. 23. Numerical human model (HUGO) that was used to evaluate
the SAR of the triple-band antenna at (a) 2.4, (b) 3.5, and (c) 5.8 GHz
at 1 g.
Fig. 24. Numerical human model (HUGO) that was used to evaluate
the SAR of the triple-band antenna integrated with AMC array at (a) 2.4,
(b) 3.5, and (c) 5.8 GHz at 1 g.
in Table IV and also presented in Figs. 23 and 24, respectively.
Where in Fig. 23(a)–(c), it was noted that the SAR level of
the antenna without the AMC array structure for 1 g is found
to be 1.92, 2.63, and 2.35 W/kg at 2.4, 3.5, and 5.8 GHz,
respectively. While the SAR level of the antenna with AMC
array structure for 1 g is calculated to be 0.0882, 0.0451, and
0.0252 W/kg, as shown in Fig. 24(a)–(c), respectively.
These SAR levels are much lower than those discovered for
the antenna without the AMC array structure, and they comply
with both American and European regulations.
V. T ESTING O PERATING OF A NTENNA
The ability of the antenna for transmitting and receiving
was tested by using a vector signal generator device on the
transmitter side to generate an FM module, and a signal
analyzer device was used on the receiver side to display the
received signal. FM module was chosen due to its signal being
represented in the main and side lobes. The number of lobes
Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
23385
Fig. 25. (a) Transmitter vector signal generator and (b) receiver signal
analyzer.
Fig. 26. Received signal in signal analyzer screen at (a) 2.45, (b) 3.5,
and (c) 5.8 GHz.
depends on the limit of bandwidth selected. The prototype
of the antenna was made twice the first antenna was for a
transmitter and the other for a receiver.
In the first step, we calibrate and set up both devices at the
required frequency band and then connect the first antenna
with the vector signal analyzer device without connecting any
antenna at the receiver part; while there was not any main
and side lobs signal appeared in signal analyzer screen just
some small lobes of noise as presented in Fig. 25(a) and (b),
transmitter and receiver device, respectively. Then connect the
second antenna to the signal analyzer device to operate as a
receiver antenna.
The received signal of 2.4 GHz was illustrated in Fig. 26(a),
where present many main lobes with some minor lobes at two
sides, which means that the antenna achieves a good ability to
work at this frequency band. Fig. 26(b) presents the received
signal of 3.5 GHz, which contains many main lobes with
only some minor lobes at two sides, which means that the
antenna has a good ability to work at this frequency band,
and Fig. 26(c) shows the received signal of 5.8 GHz, which
has main lobes lower than at 2.4- and 3.5-GHz bands; that is
possible as a result of the manual fabrication technique.
 23386
The performance of the proposed triple-band antenna design
was compared with different wearable triple-band antennas
reported in the literature, and the compassion faces are illus-
trated in Table V in terms of material, flexibility, operating
frequency, dimensions, reflection technique, SAR level, and
gain characteristics. All of these factors and characteristics are
critical in a wearable antenna. As a present of the illustrated
results, our proposed design appears to be very advantageous
in terms of size. The design in [19], [25], [41], and [42], whose
size is higher than the proposed design, is incompatible with
wearable antennas since they are high-profile structures.
Another comparison factor is SAR, which is studied in [21],
[41], and [42], and the proposed design has an SAR level lower
than others, which makes it safer for long-time wearing. When
contrasting the proposed antenna’s characteristics with those
of the triple-band wearable antennas that have been previously
reported, it is evident that the suggested antenna advances
benefits in terms of flexibility, footprint, low profile, gain, and
SAR level better than other wearable antennas.
VI. C ONCLUSION
This study proposed a flexible low-profile triple-band wear-
able antenna for IoMT application that is integrated with an
AMC array structure at its back. The antenna’s top side, which
is responsible for radiation, has a monopole with mender line
geometry, and the two rectangular grounds on either side of the
feedline are all attached to a felt substrate. On the other hand,
a 2 × 3 AMC array structure is suggested and implemented
on the antenna’s back with a space of 3 mm, which decreases
back radiation and raises the antenna’s front to back ratio
(FBR) value. Both the antenna and the AMC construction
are composed of full-textile materials. The simulations and
measurements were used to investigate the performance of the
triple-band monopole antenna with and without the AMC array
structure. The developed antenna has a low SAR level, high
gain, and directivity due to the AMC array structure at its
back.
R EFERENCES
[1] H. A. M. Puat and N. A. A. Rahman, “IoMT: A review of pacemaker
vulnerabilities and security strategy,” J. Phys., Conf. Ser., vol. 1712,
no. 1, Dec. 2020, Art. no. 012009.
[2] S. K. Udgata and N. K. Suryadevara, “COVID-19, sensors, and Internet
of Medical Things (IoMT),” in Internet of Things and Sensor Network
for COVID-19 (SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology).
Singapore: Springer, 2021.
[3] S. Makka, G. Arora, and B. Mopuru, “IoT based health monitoring
and record management using distributed ledger,” J. Phys., Conf. Ser.,
vol. 2089, no. 1, Nov. 2021, Art. no. 012030.
[4] F. Barneih, E. A. Majali, O. Alshaltone, N. Nasir, and A. Al-Shammaa,
“5G ring antenna for Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) applications,”
in Proc. 14th Int. Conf. Develop. eSystems Eng. (DeSE), Dec. 2021,
pp. 198–201.
[5] R. Dwivedi, D. Mehrotra, and S. Chandra, “Potential of Internet of
Medical Things (IoMT) applications in building a smart healthcare
system: A systematic review,” J. Oral Biol. Craniofacial Res., vol. 12,
no. 2, pp. 302–318, Mar. 2022.
[6] Z. Ashfaq et al., “A review of enabling technologies for Internet of
Medical Things (IoMT) ecosystem,” Ain Shams Eng. J., vol. 13, no. 4,
Jun. 2022, Art. no. 101660.
[7] C. Loss, R. Gonçalves, C. Lopes, P. Pinho, and R. Salvado, “Smart coat
with a fully-embedded textile antenna for IoT applications,” Sensors,
vol. 16, no. 6, p. 938, Jun. 2016.
[8] S. Yan, P. J. Soh, and G. A. E. Vandenbosch, “Wearable ultrawideband
technology—A review of ultrawideband antennas, propagation channels,
and applications in wireless body area networks,” IEEE Access, vol. 6,
pp. 42177–42185, 2018.
Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 23, NO. 19, 1 OCTOBER 2023
[9] K. Koski, L. Sydänheimo, Y. Rahmat-Samii, and L. Ukkonen, “Funda-
mental characteristics of electro-textiles in wearable UHF RFID patch
antennas for body-centric sensing systems,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 62, no. 12, pp. 6454–6462, Dec. 2014.
[10] S. SankarGanesh, P. Sreelatha, V. B. Rekha, A. K. Puttumraju,
B. Murugesan, and K. Sakthisudhan, “Textile antennas for breast
carcinoma diagnosis application,” Mater. Today, Proc., vol. 45,
pp. 3147–3152, 2021.
[11] C. Luo, I. Gil, and R. Fernández-García, “Experimental comparison of
three electro-textile interfaces for textile UHF-RFID tags on clothes,”
AEU Int. J. Electron. Commun., vol. 146, Mar. 2022, Art. no. 154137.
[12] N. T. Atanasov, G. L. Atanasova, A. K. Stefanov, and I. I. Nedialkov,
“A wearable, low-profile, fractal monopole antenna integrated with a
reflector for enhancing antenna performance and SAR reduction,” in
IEEE MTT-S Int. Microw. Symp. Dig., Jul. 2019, pp. 67–69.
[13] I. Gil and R. Fernández-García, “SAR impact evaluation on jeans wear-
able antennas,” in Proc. 11th Eur. Conf. Antennas Propag. (EUCAP),
Mar. 2017, pp. 2187–2190.
[14] S. Sankaralingam and B. Gupta, “Determination of dielectric constant of
fabric materials and their use as substrates for design and development
of antennas for wearable applications,” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas.,
vol. 59, no. 12, pp. 3122–3130, Dec. 2010.
[15] S. M. Asha Banu and K. Meena Alias Jeyanthi, “Textile based antenna
design for breast cancer detection,” Mater. Today, Proc., vol. 62,
pp. 4814–4820, 2022.
[16] W. Chaihongsa and C. Phongcharoenpanich, “Triple band textile antenna
using split annular ring,” in Proc. Int. Symp. Antennas Propag. (ISAP),
Oct. 2017, pp. 1–2.
[17] D. Mandal and S. S. Pattnaik, “Quad-band wearable slot antenna with
low SAR values WiMAX applications,” Prog. Electromagn. Res. B,
vol. 81, pp. 163–182, 2018.
[18] K. Agarwal, Y.-X. Guo, and B. Salam, “Wearable AMC backed near-
endfire antenna for on-body communications on latex substrate,” IEEE
Trans. Compon., Packag., Manuf. Technol., vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 346–358,
Mar. 2016.
[19] X. Yang and S. Yang, “Three band wearable antenna based on arti-
ficial magnetic conductor,” DEStech Trans. Mater. Sci. Eng., vol. 3,
pp. 414–420, Apr. 2021.
[20] H. Kaur and P. Chawla, “Performance analysis of novel wearable textile
antenna design for medical and wireless applications,” Wireless Pers.
Commun., vol. 124, no. 2, pp. 1475–1491, May 2022.
[21] R. Nagarjun, G. George, D. Thiripurasundari, R. Poonkuzhali, and
Z. C. Alex, “Design of a triple band planar bow-tie antenna for wearable
applications,” in Proc. IEEE Conf. Inf. Commun. Technol., Apr. 2013,
pp. 1185–1189.
[22] A. Kumar Biswas and U. Chakraborty, “Compact wearable MIMO
antenna with improved port isolation for ultra-wideband applications,”
IET Microw., Antennas Propag., vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 498–504, Mar. 2019.
[23] K. Chandran P. L., D. Samantaray, A. Mohamed, C. Saha, and
S. Bhattacharyya, “Gain enhancement of Yagi slot antenna using AMC
substrate,” in Proc. URSI Regional Conf. Radio Sci. (URSI-RCRS),
Feb. 2020, pp. 1–4.
[24] G.-P. Gao, C. Yang, B. Hu, R.-F. Zhang, and S.-F. Wang, “A wearable
PIFA with an all-textile metasurface for 5 GHz WBAN applications,”
IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 288–292,
Feb. 2019.
[25] Z. Wang, L. Z. Lee, D. Psychoudakis, and J. L. Volakis, “Embroidered
multiband body-worn antenna for GSM/PCS/WLAN communications,”
IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 62, no. 6, pp. 3321–3329, Jun. 2014.
[26] L. Yao et al., “Miniaturization and electromagnetic reliability of wear-
able textile antennas,” Electronics, vol. 10, no. 9, p. 994, 2021.
[27] X. Guo, W. Liao, Q. Zhang, and Y. Chen, “A dual-band embedded
inverted T-slot circular microstrip patch antenna,” in Proc. IEEE 5th
Asia–Pacific Conf. Antennas Propag. (APCAP), Jul. 2016, pp. 151–152.
[28] P. Saini, P. K. Singh, Y. Zhuang, I. A. Ali, and S. Asiri, “Modeling
and simulation of an antenna with optimized AMC reflecting layer
for gain and front-to-back ratio enhancement for 5G applications,” in
Proc. 21st Int. Summer School Vacuum, Electron Ion Technol., 2020,
pp. 1492–1497.
[29] S. Yan, P. J. Soh, and G. A. E. Vandenbosch, “Low-profile dual-band
textile antenna with artificial magnetic conductor plane,” IEEE Trans.
Antennas Propag., vol. 62, no. 12, pp. 6487–6490, Dec. 2014.
[30] S. Velan et al., “Dual-band EBG integrated monopole antenna deploying
fractal geometry for wearable applications,” IEEE Antennas Wireless
Propag. Lett., vol. 14, pp. 249–252, 2015.
 KAREEM et al.: TRIPLE-BAND MONOPOLE TEXTILE WEARABLE ANTENNA FOR IoMT APPLICATION
[31] D. Wen, Y. Hao, M. O. Munoz, H. Wang, and H. Zhou, “A compact and
low-profile MIMO antenna using a miniature circular high-impedance
surface for wearable applications,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 66, no. 1, pp. 96–104, Jan. 2018.
[32] S. R. Zahran, M. A. Abdalla, and A. Gaafar, “New thin wide-band
bracelet-like antenna with low SAR for on-arm WBAN applica-
tions,” IET Microw., Antennas Propag., vol. 13, no. 8, pp. 1219–1225,
Jul. 2019.
[33] R. Del-Rio-Ruiz, J.-M. Lopez-Garde, J. Legarda, S. Lemey, O. Caytan,
and H. Rogier, “Reliable lab-scale construction process for electromag-
netically coupled textile microstrip patch antennas for the 2.45-GHz
ISM band,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 19, no. 1,
pp. 153–157, Jan. 2020.
[34] Abdulrahman. S. M. Alqadami, A. E. Stancombe, K. S. Bialkowski,
and A. Abbosh, “Flexible meander-line antenna array for wearable
electromagnetic head imaging,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 69,
no. 7, pp. 4206–4211, Jul. 2021.
[35] S. Sreelekshmi and S. P. Sankar, “Design and analysis of novel
miniaturised triple band antenna for breast cancer detection,” Microsyst.
Technol., vol. 28, no. 7, pp. 1715–1726, Jul. 2022.
[36] R. Patel, A. Desai, and T. Upadhyaya, “Low-profile parallel mutually
coupled triple-band antenna for telecommunications applications,” Wire-
less Pers. Commun., vol. 117, no. 2, pp. 945–956, Mar. 2021.
[37] J.-H. Lu and B.-J. Huang, “Planar compact slot antenna with multi-
band operation for IEEE 802.16m application,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propag., vol. 61, no. 3, pp. 1411–1414, Mar. 2013.
[38] A. P. Saghati, M. Azarmanesh, and R. Zaker, “A novel switchable single-
and multifrequency triple-slot antenna for 2.4-GHz Bluetooth, 3.5-GHz
WiMax, and 5.8-GHz WLAN,” IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett.,
vol. 9, pp. 534–537, 2010.
[39] W. Liu, K. Zhang, J. Li, and S. Yan, “A wearable tri-band half-
mode substrate integrated waveguide antenna,” IEEE Antennas Wireless
Propag. Lett., vol. 20, no. 12, pp. 2501–2505, Dec. 2021.
[40] A. Kumar, C. S. Rai, and M. Kumar Khandelwal, “Realization of
miniaturized triple-band four-port stacked MIMO antenna for WLAN
applications at 2.9/5.0/5.9 GHz bands,” AEU Int. J. Electron. Commun.,
vol. 150, Jun. 2022, Art. no. 154216.
[41] T. T. Le, Y.-D. Kim, and T.-Y. Yun, “Wearable triple-band open-ring
antenna for WBAN off-body communication,” IEEE Access, vol. 9,
pp. 118435–118442, 2021.
[42] A. Gupta and V. Kumar, “Design of a tri-band patch antenna with
back reflector for off-body communication,” Wireless Pers. Commun.,
vol. 115, no. 1, pp. 173–185, Nov. 2020.
[43] Y.-C. Luan, F.-S. Zhang, Y. Xu, W.-L. Liang, and Y. Wang, “Com-
pact triple-band monopole antenna with a wide-slot ground for
WLAN/WIMAX applications,” in Proc. Int. Workshop Microw. Millim.
Wave Circuits Syst. Technol., Oct. 2013, pp. 127–130.
[44] J. O. Abolade, D. B. O. Konditi, and V. M. Dharmadhikary, “Compar-
ative study of textile material characterization techniques for wearable
antennas,” Results Mater., vol. 9, Jan. 2021, Art. no. 100168.
[45] N. Montaseri, Z. Khodkar, J. Abouei, W. G. Whittow, and K. N. Platani-
otis, “A conformal leaky-wave antenna design for IoMT-based WBANs,”
IEEE Access, vol. 11, pp. 46719–46733, 2023.
[46] G. L. Atanasova, B. N. Atanasov, and N. T. Atanasov, “Fully textile
dual-band logo antenna for IoT wearable devices,” Sensors, vol. 22,
no. 12, p. 4516, Jun. 2022.
[47] L. Tan et al., “Toward real-time and efficient cardiovascular monitor-
ing for COVID-19 patients by 5G-enabled wearable medical devices:
A deep learning approach,” Neural Comput. Appl., vol. 35, no. 19,
pp. 13921–13934, Jul. 2023.
[48] K. Wei, L. Zhang, Y. Guo, and X. Jiang, “Health monitoring based
on Internet of Medical Things: Architecture, enabling technologies, and
applications,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 27468–27478, 2020.
[49] H. Zhang, J. Li, B. Wen, Y. Xun, and J. Liu, “Connecting intelligent
things in smart hospitals using NB-IoT,” IEEE Internet Things J., vol. 5,
no. 3, pp. 1550–1560, Jun. 2018.
[50] S. Yang, L. Zhang, W. Wang, and Y. Zheng, “Flexible tri-band dual-
polarized MIMO belt strap antenna toward wearable applications in
intelligent Internet of Medical Things,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 70, no. 1, pp. 197–208, Jan. 2022.
[51] F. Mouhouche, A. Azrar, M. Dehmas, and K. Djafri, “Gain improvement
of CPW-fed monopole antenna over dual-band AMC structure,” in Proc.
5th Int. Conf. Electr. Eng. Boumerdes (ICEE-B), Oct. 2017, pp. 1–4.
Authorized licensed use limited to: International Institute of Information Technology Bhubaneswar. Downloaded on April 22,2024 at 13:06:13 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
23387
[52] Health Physics. (1998). International Commission on Non-
Ionizing Radiation Protection: Guidelines for Limiting Exposure
to Time-Varying Electric, Magnetic, and Electromagnetic Fields
(up to 300 GHz). International Commission on Non-Ionizing
Radiation. Accessed: Sep. 20, 2021. [Online]. Available:
https://www.icnirp.org/en/publications/article/icnirppublications-1992-
2004.html
[53] (1997). Federal Communications Commission: Radio Frequency
Safety Information on Human Exposure to Radiofrequency Fields
From Cellular and PCS Radio Transmitters. [Online]. Available:
http://www.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/cellpcs.html
[54] W. Wu, Z. Wu, T. Yu, C. Jiang, and W.-S. Kim, “Recent progress on
magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles: Synthesis, surface functional strate-
gies and biomedical applications,” Sci. Technol. Adv. Mater., vol. 16,
no. 2, Apr. 2015, Art. no. 023501.
[55] M. Kanagasabai et al., “On the design of frequency reconfigurable
tri-band miniaturized antenna for WBAN applications,” AEU Int. J. Elec-
tron. Commun., vol. 127, Dec. 2020, Art. no. 153450.
Farah Raad Kareem was born in 1992. She
received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engi-
neering from the Electronic and Communication
Engineering Department, University of Modern
Scenic and Arts, Cairo, Egypt, in 2014, the M.Sc.
degree in electrical engineering from the Elec-
tronic and Communication Engineering Depart-
ment, Arab Academy for Science, Technology,
and Maritime Transport, Cairo, Egypt, in 2018,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
from the Electronic and Communication Engi-
neering Department, Minia University, Elminia, Egypt, in 2022.
She is now a Lecturer with the Electrical Engineering Department,
Faculty of Engineering, University of Modern Scenic and Arts, Cairo.
Ahmed A. Ibrahim (Senior Member, IEEE)
received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees
in electrical engineering from the Electronic and
Communication Engineering Department, Minia
University, El-Mina, Egypt, in 2007, 2011, and
2014, respectively.
He is now an Associated Professor with Elec-
trical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engi-
neering, Minia University, El-Mina.
Mahmoud A. Abdalla (Senior Member, IEEE)
was born in 1973. He received the B.Sc.
and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering
from Electrical Engineering Department, Military
Technical College, Cairo, Egypt, in 1995 and
2000, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from
Microwave and Communication Group, School
of Electrical Engineering, Manchester University,
U.K., in 2009.
He has been with the Military Technical Col-
lege since 1996, where he is now a Profes-
sor, the Head of the Department Council Committee, and also the
Electromagnetic Waves/Microwave Group in Electronic Engineering
Department.