A Radiating Metasurface Circular Patch Antenna with Null Steering for Wireless Body Area Network and Medical Applications

Authors

  • Bashar Bahaa Qas Elias Department of Information and Communication Engineering, College of Information Engineering, Al-Nahrain University, Jadriya, Baghdad, Iraq
  • Sumaya D. Awad Department of Computer Networks Engineering, College of Information Engineering, Al-Nahrain University, Jadriya, Baghdad, Iraq
  • Marwa M. Ismail Department of Information and Communication Engineering, College of Information Engineering, Al-Nahrain University, Jadriya, Baghdad, Iraq
  • Bashar S. Bashar Department of Computer Engineering Techniques, College of Engineering, University of Al Maarif, Al Anbar, 31001, Iraq
  • Ping Jack Soh Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4500, 90014 Oulu, Finland

Keywords:

Flexible antenna, Metasurface, Null steering, Radiation, Wireless body area network

Abstract

The flexible printed metasurface circular patch antenna is presented for wireless body area network (WBAN) and healthcare monitoring applications. The proposed design is based on combining an ordinary circular patch with concentric-ring metasurfaces to realize wideband operation and passive radiation null steering without the aid of phased arrays or complex feeding networks. By controlling the current distribution, deep radiation nulls are achieved by the antenna at 90° and 270°, reducing radiation in the direction of the human body and mitigating the electromagnetic interference. The antenna is designed for sub-6 GHz applications in the 2.45 GHz ISM band, having an operating frequency range of 2.32–3.82 GHz. The measured and simulated results show good agreement, with reflection coefficients of (−10.86/−15.96) dB and (−8.70/−12.98) dB at 2.45 GHz and 3.6 GHz, respectively; the peak gain of approximately 8 dBi, and the null depth is more than 30 dB, which mainly validates the feasibility of this work for wearable and biomedical communications systems. The antenna is also tested under close to body operating conditions, where the specific absorption rate (SAR) values are calculated for different antenna to body separation distances. The 1 g and 10 g averaged SAR values are found to be well within the limits, with the highest values being 0.834 W/kg and 0.629 W/kg, respectively, which show good electromagnetic exposure performance.

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Published

20-10-2026

How to Cite

Qas Elias, B. B., Awad, S. D., Ismail, M. M., Bashar, B. S., & Soh, P. J. (2026). A Radiating Metasurface Circular Patch Antenna with Null Steering for Wireless Body Area Network and Medical Applications. Applications of Modelling and Simulation, 10, 265–275. Retrieved from https://arqiipubl.com/ojs/index.php/AMS_Journal/article/view/1512

Issue

Vol. 10 (2026)

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2026 Bashar Bahaa Qas Elias, Sumaya D. Awad, Marwa M. Ismail, Bashar S. Bashar, Ping Jack Soh

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