Design and Analysis of Antenna Arrays Operating at Microwave Frequencies for Biomedical Applications

Recent studies have focused on the development of antenna arrays dedicated to biomedical applications in response to the ongoing development of wireless communication systems. There is a considerable need for small antenna arrays for these applications with high gain, high directivity, and low return loss. In the same context, the current study focuses on the design and analysis of three potential antenna array structures: a 2-element array (or 2 * 1 array), a 6-element array (or 3 * 2 array), and a 12-element array (or 6 * 2 array). Those structures were designed using CST Studio v21 for a resonance frequency of 70 GHz on a Rogers RT5880 substrate with a dielectric constant of 2.2. The analysis of those three structures in terms of the main characteristics of antenna arrays revealed the best return loss of − 34 dB for the 6-element array resonating at 80 GHz with a largest bandwidth of 13 GHz. At the resonant frequencies of each structure, the VSWR is less than two for the three arrays, which closely matches the actual requirements. The gain is the best using the 2- and 6-element arrays and approaches 12 dBi. By doubling the array’s elements, we were able to get greater directivities in terms of the radiation pattern (i.e., 13.1 dBi for 2-elements, 14.6 dBi for 6-elements, and 15.9 dBi for 12-elements). Eventually, the largest current density of roughly 351 A/m may be achieved with the 12-element array. Finally, the three antenna configurations approach an efficiency of 90%. Those results made our suggested antenna arrays good candidates for further investigation in biomedical applications.