A Truncated Conical Dielectric Resonator Antenna for Body-Area Network Applications

An inverted truncated annular conical dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) for potential use in body-area network (BAN) applications is introduced. The antenna is designed to operate within the lower European ultrawideband (UWB) frequency band (3.4-5.0 GHz). The selected DRA geometry in combination with a capacitively loaded monopole as the feeding mechanism results in a low-profile antenna with wide bandwidth and stable monopole-like patterns. In addition, the antenna exhibits good UWB properties, as characterized through the dispersion effect on the transmitted impulse voltage signal. The DRA has been numerically and experimentally examined for both free-space and on-body applications, demonstrating a good performance in the frequency- and time-domain.