MICROMACHINED WEARABLE/FOLDABLE SUPER WIDEBAND (SWA) MONOPOLE ANTENNA BASED ON A FLEXIBLE LIQUID CRYSTAL POLYMER (LCP) SUBSTRATE TOWARD IMAGING/SENSING/HEALTH MONITORING SYSTEMS
Cheolbok Kim, Jong Kyu Kim, Kyoung Tae Kim and Yong-Kyu Yoon
In this paper, a wearable/foldable super wideband (SWB) monopole antenna on a flexible liquid crystal polymer (LCP) substrate is implemented using surface micromachining for imaging, sensing, radar and healthcare monitoring systems. The antenna consists of a coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed circular patch as a main radiator, a tapered transition portion between the patch and the CPW line, and corner-rounded ground planes, for broad bandwidth. The overall size of the antenna is 37.5 ? 35.5 ? 0.05 mm3. The fabricated SWB antenna is characterized in a frequency spectrum from 1 to 50 GHz. A measured ratio bandwidth of 11.9:1 (3.0 to 35.3 GHz or 169% bandwidth) has been obtained. The antenna has a monopole-like radiation pattern and a group delay of less than ?1 ns across all spectrum ranges. The measured results show good agreement with those of simulation.
Keywords: Antenna measurements, Antenna radiation patterns, Bandwidth, Coplanar waveguides, Feeds and Substrates