A Compact Dual-Port Dual-Polarized Ultrawideband Wearable Textile Antenna for Off-Body Communications in IoT-Based WBAN Scenarios

This article proposes, to the best of our knowledge, the first dual-port compact dual-polarized ultrawideband wearable textile antenna covering lower UHF bands for off-body communications in Internet-of-Things-based wireless body area network (IoT-based WBAN) scenarios. The antenna covers key bands for diverse services, including the 470–510 MHz LoRa WAN, 700 MHz offline emergency communication, 900 MHz NB-IoT, and 1–1.2 GHz satellite internet bands. The antenna adopts a square-ring loaded wide slot structure and a multi-mode resonant feeding structure to achieve ultrawideband operation. Moreover, it utilizes oppositely placed advanced microstrip feeding networks to excite the horizontal and vertical polarization modes, respectively, and four narrow slots around the wide slot to extend the current path, thus enabling a compact size of 0.30 × 0.28 × 0.0035 λl3 (where λl is the largest operating wavelength). Measured −10 dB impedance bandwidths are 119.1% (0.35–1.38 GHz) for Port 1 and 115.9% (0.39–1.37 GHz) for Port 2 on the human body, with more than 19 dB port isolation over the operating band. The measured average gains are about 4.21 dBi for Port 1 and 3.54 dBi for Port 2 on the human body, respectively. Specific absorption rate analysis confirms compliance with the IEEE C95.1 limit at 0.5 W input power. Wireless transmission experiments at IoT bands further validate reliable off-body links with excellent signal-to-noise ratios for both polarizations. The antenna shall be very attractive for off-body communications in IoT-based WBAN scenarios.