Design and Analysis of Modified UWB Mono-Cone Antenna for WBAN Applications

A low-profile UWB antenna is presented in this paper for wireless body area network (WBAN) applications. The proposed antenna consists of a modified mono-cone structure by adding a semi-sphere on top of the mono-cone. A top-plate is added as overhead to the proposed antenna. This plate leads to a height reduction when compared to conventional mono-cone antennas. In this paper, the effect of ground plane dimensions, effect of top-plate dimensions, effect of the supporting legs and effect of the total height of the antenna is studied to get a better insight into the working of the radiating structure. The antenna operates in the frequency range of 4.1 GHz to 10.1GHz with return loss less than -10dB. The bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 6 GHz. The frequency domain results are obtained by simulating the design using Ansoft HFSS. The voltage standing wave ratio is less than 2 within the frequency range of the proposed antenna design. The influence of the human proximity on the antenna was simulated by placing the proposed antenna over a human body model. (paper)