Deeply Implanted Conformal Antenna for Real-Time Bio-Telemetry Applications

The design and experimental verification of a deeply implanted conformal printed antenna is presented. The hip implant acts as the ground plane for a coaxial-cable-fed trapezoidal radiator designed to transmit biological signals collected within the body by proper biosensors. The arrangement, consisting of a metallic (or equivalent) hip implant, bio-compatible gypsum-based dielectric, and conformal radiator, was tested when the hosting 3D-printed plastic bone was immersed in tissue-like liquid contained in a plastic bucket. The dimensions of the set-up are similar to a human leg. Matching and radiation characteristics are presented in the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) frequency band (2.4-2.5 GHz), showing the feasibility of the proposed arrangement.

Beam-Switching Antennas for 5G Millimeter-Wave Wireless Terminals

Beam-switching is one of the paramount focuses of 28 GHz millimeter-wave 5G devices. In this paper, a one-dimensional (1D) pattern reconfigurable leaky-wave antenna (LWA) was investigated and developed for wireless terminals. In order to provide a cost-effective solution, a uniform half-width LWA was used. The 1D beam-switching LWA was designed using three feed points at three different positions; by selecting the feeds, the direction of the beam can be switched. The antenna can switch the beam in three different directions along the antenna axis, such as backward, broadside, and forward. The 1D beam-switching antenna was fabricated, and because of the wide beamwidth, the measured radiation patterns can fill 128∘ of space (3 dB coverage), from θ = -64∘ to +64∘ at ϕ = 0∘. Following this, two of these antennas were placed at right angles to each other to achieve two-directional (2D) beam switching. The 2D beam-switching antenna pair was also prototyped and tested after integrating them into the ground plane of a wireless device. The antenna is able to point the beam in five different directions; moreover, its beam covers 167∘ (θ = -89∘ to +78∘) at ϕ = 0∘, and 154∘ (θ = -72∘ to +82∘) at ϕ = 90∘.

Circularly polarized differential intra-oral antenna design validation and characterization for tongue drive system

Assistive devices are becoming increasingly popular for physically disabled persons suffering tetraplegia and spinal cord injuries. Intraoral tongue drive system (iTDS) is one of the most feasible and non-invasive assistive technology (AT), which utilises the transferring and inferring of user intentions through different tongue gestures. Wireless transferring is of prime importance and requires a suitable design of the intra-oral antenna. In this paper, a compact circularly polarized differential intra-oral antenna is designed, and its performance is analysed within heterogeneous multilayer mouth and head models. It works at 2.4 GHz in the Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band. The footprint of the differential antenna prototype is 0.271 λ_g [Formula: see text] 0.271 λ_g [Formula: see text] 0.015 λ_g. It is achieved using two pairs of spiral segments loaded in diagonal form near the edges of the central rotated square slot and a high dielectric constant substrate. Its spiral-slotted geometry further provides the desired swirling and miniaturization at the desired frequency band for both mouth scenarios. Additionally, corner triangular slits on the radiating patch assist in tuning the axial ratio (< 3 dB) in the desired ISM band. To validate the performance of the proposed in-mouth antenna, the measurement was carried out using the minced pork and the saline solution for closed and opened mouth cases, respectively. The measured - 10 dB impedance bandwidth and peak gain values in the minced pork are from 2.28 to 2.53 GHz (10.39%) and - 18.17 dBi, respectively, and in the saline solution, are from 2.3 to 2.54 GHz (9.92%) and - 15.47 dBi, respectively. Further, the specific absorption rate (SAR) is estimated, and the data communication link is computed with and without a balun loss. This confirms that the proposed differential intraoral antenna can establish direct interfacing at the RF front end of the intraoral tongue drive system.

Low-loss MIMO antenna wireless communication system for 5G cardiac pacemakers

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are one of the leading causes of death globally. The Internet of things (IoT) enabled with industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) bands (2.45 and 5.8 GHz) facilitates pacemakers to remotely share heart health data to medical professionals. For the first time, communication between a compact dual-band two-port multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna (integrated inside the leadless pacemaker) and an outside-body dual-band two-port MIMO antenna in the ISM 2.45 and 5.8 GHz frequency bands is demonstrated in this work. The proposed communication system offers an attractive solution for cardiac pacemakers as it can operate on a 5G IoT platform while also being compatible with existing 4G standards. The experimental verification of the proposed MIMO antenna low-loss communication capability is also presented by comparing it to the existing single-input-single-output communication between the leadless pacemaker and outside body monitoring device.

Design and Experimental Validation of a Switchable Frequency Selective Surface with Incorporated Control Network

Tunable/switchable devices are more and more required in modern communication systems. However, the realization of the tuning requires the presence of active devices, which in turn must be biased. The current paper comes up with a solution for designing and experimentally validating such a switchable Frequency Selective Surface. Two different metallic structures are simulated and measured, having incorporated the same topology control network (CN). In this scenario, the main innovation of this paper is the presence of the feeding part, namely the control network. In this work, the main FSS structure is flanked by three parallel CN microstrip lines and several via holes that allow biasing the active elements, namely PIN diodes. The switchability of the proposed structure is achieved through PIN diodes, whose bias determines the values of the elements in the equivalent circuit. At different biases, the response of the FSS changes accordingly. From all possible values of the bias, the extreme cases when the diodes act as (almost) short- and open-circuits are considered in the submitted manuscript for the sake of brevity. These cases are modeled by the main and cut-slot structures, respectively. The proposed structures have been evaluated using electromagnetic simulation and implemented on an FR4 substrate having a thickness of 1.58 mm. With the periodicity of the square-shaped unit cell of 18 mm edge length, different filtering bands are obtained below 12 GHz. Another novelty that has received very little consideration in the existing literature is the use of a finite array of unit cells instead of an infinite one. And finally, tests in an anechoic chamber have proved that there is a good agreement between practical and simulation results and also demonstrated the proper performance of the devices for wide angular incidence for both TE and TM polarizations.

Perfectly conducting cylinder covered by two layers of dielectric separated by an infinitely thin impedance layer: multiple suppression of the scattered field harmonics (rigorous approach)

We propose and develop a novel rigorous technique that enables one to obtain the explicit numerical values of parameters at which several lowest-order harmonics of the scattered field are suppressed. This provides partial cloaking of the object, a perfectly conducting cylinder of circular cross section covered by two layers of dielectric separated by an infinitely thin impedance layer, a two-layer impedance Goubau line (GL). The developed approach is a rigorous method that enables one to obtain in the closed form (and without numerical calculations) the values of parameters providing the cloaking effect, achieved particularly in terms of the suppression of several scattered field harmonics and variation of the sheet impedance. This issue constitutes the novelty of the accomplished study. The elaborated technique could be applied to validate the results obtained by commercial solvers with virtually no limitations on the parameter ranges, i.e., use it as a benchmark. The determination of the cloaking parameters is straightforward and does not require computations. We perform comprehensive visualization and analysis of the achieved partial cloaking. The developed parameter-continuation technique enables one to increase the number of the suppressed scattered-field harmonics by appropriate choice of the impedance. The method can be extended to any dielectric-layered impedance structures possessing circular or planar symmetry.

Amplifiers in Biomedical Engineering: A Review from Application Perspectives

Continuous monitoring and treatment of various diseases with biomedical technologies and wearable electronics has become significantly important. The healthcare area is an important, evolving field that, among other things, requires electronic and micro-electromechanical technologies. Designed circuits and smart devices can lead to reduced hospitalization time and hospitals equipped with high-quality equipment. Some of these devices can also be implanted inside the body. Recently, various implanted electronic devices for monitoring and diagnosing diseases have been presented. These instruments require communication links through wireless technologies. In the transmitters of these devices, power amplifiers are the most important components and their performance plays important roles. This paper is devoted to collecting and providing a comprehensive review on the various designed implanted amplifiers for advanced biomedical applications. The reported amplifiers vary with respect to the class/type of amplifier, implemented CMOS technology, frequency band, output power, and the overall efficiency of the designs. The purpose of the authors is to provide a general view of the available solutions, and any researcher can obtain suitable circuit designs that can be selected for their problem by reading this survey.

Wideband RCS Reduction by Single-Layer Phase Gradient Modulated Surface

This paper deals with the design and fabrication of an unpretentious (single-layer, without any lump element) broadband (97%, 11.3-32.3 GHz) radar cross-section reduction (RCSR) modulated surface (MS). The proposed structure uses sinusoidal modulation gap sizes between square patches within square unit cells to form a phase gradient that plays an effective role in improving the RCSR bandwidth. An MS with dimensions of 250 × 250 mm², consisting of 40 × 40 unit cells with a period of 6 mm printed on a RO4003C (lossy) substrate of 0.06λ_LF (λ_LF being the wavelength at the lower frequency) thickness, has been prototyped. The MS has square patch (SP) unit cells with seven different gap sizes. A genetic algorithm (GA)-based fine-tuning has been implemented to further increase the performances of the structure. Measurements on it have been conducted considering both mono- and bi-static arrangements and for oblique incidences for both TM and TE polarization tests. A good agreement between simulation and measurement results proves the validity of the design criteria.

Design of a Millimeter-Wave MIMO Antenna Array for 5G Communication Terminals

This paper presents a design of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna array for 5G millimeter-wave (mm-wave) communication systems. The proposed MIMO configuration consists of a two antenna arrays combination. Each antenna array consists of four elements which are arranged in an even manner, while two arrays are then assembled with a 90-degree shift with respect to each other. The substrate used is a 0.254 mm thick Rogers RT5880 with a dielectric constant of 2.2 and loss tangent of 0.0009, correspondingly. The proposed MIMO antenna array covers the 37 GHz frequency band, dedicated for 5G millimeter-wave communication applications. The proposed antenna element yields a gain of 6.84 dB, which is enhanced up to 12.8 dB by adopting a four elements array configuration. The proposed MIMO antenna array performance metrics, such as envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) and diversity gain (DG), are observed, which are found to be under the standard threshold. More than 85% of the radiation efficiency of the proposed MIMO antenna array is observed to be within the desired operating frequency band. All the proposed designs are simulated in computer simulation technology (CST) software. Furthermore, the measurements are carried out for the proposed MIMO antenna array, where a good agreement with simulated results is observed. Thus, the proposed design can be a potential candidate for 5G millimeter-wave communication systems.

Design and implementation of compact dual-band conformal antenna for leadless cardiac pacemaker system

The leadless cardiac pacemaker is a pioneering device for heart patients. Its rising success requires the design of compact implantable antennas. In this paper, we describe a circularly polarized Hilbert curve inspired loop antenna. The proposed antenna works in the WMTS (Wireless Medical Telemetry Services) 1.4 GHz and ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) 2.45 GHz bands. High dielectric constant material Rogers RT/Duroid 6010 LM ([Formula: see text]=10) and fractal geometry helps to design the antenna with a small footprint of 9.1 mm³ (6 mm × 6 mm × 0.254 mm). The designed antenna has a conformal shape that fits inside a leadless pacemaker's capsule is surrounded by IC models and battery, which are tightly packed in the device enclosure. Subsequently, the integrated prototype is simulated deep inside at the center of the multi-layer canonical heart model. To verify experimentally, we have put dummy electronics (IC and battery) inside the 3D printed pacemaker's capsule and surfaced the fabricated conformal antenna around the inner curved body of the TCP (Transcatheter Pacing) capsule. Furthermore, we have tested the TCP capsule by inserting it in a ballistic gel phantom and minced pork. The measured impedance bandwidths at 1.4 GHz and 2.45 GHz are 250 MHz and 430 MHz, whereas measured gains are - 33.2 dBi, and - 28.5 dBi, respectively.

Harmonic analysis and reduction of the scattered field from electrically large cloaked metallic cylinders

In this paper, an analysis of the spectral composition of the scattered field from coated metallic cylinders is performed, focusing particularly on the cloaking of electrically large structures. An expression of the scattering coefficients is derived, considering both a dielectric and a metasurface coating. Modeling the metasurface as a surface impedance boundary condition, the surface impedance, which annuls one harmonic of the scattered field, is formulated in a closed and compact form. Moreover, in the case of cylinders with radius comparable with the wavelength of interest, it is demonstrated that a reduction of the scattering is possible by using a homogeneous metasurface coating, which presents a positive surface reactance. In particular, a reduction of the scattering width of 4 dB is achieved for a cylinder radius of $ a = 0.917{\lambda _0} $a=0.917λ₀.

Nonradiating anapole condition derived from Devaney-Wolf theorem and excited in a broken-symmetry dielectric particle

In this work, we first derive the nonradiating anapole condition with a straightforward theoretical demonstration exploiting one of the Devaney-Wolf theorems for nonradiating currents. Based on the equivalent volumetric and surface electromagnetic sources, it is possible to establish a unique compact conditions directly from Maxwell's Equations in order to ensure nonradiating anapole state. In addition, we support our theoretical findings with a numerical investigation on a broken-symmetry dielectric particle, building block of a metamaterial structure, demonstrating through a detailed multiple expansion the nonradiating anapole condition behind these peculiar destructive interactions.

Topological edge states of interacting photon pairs emulated in a topolectrical circuit

Topological physics opens up a plethora of exciting phenomena allowing to engineer disorder-robust unidirectional flows of light. Recent advances in topological protection of electromagnetic waves suggest that even richer functionalities can be achieved by realizing topological states of quantum light. This area, however, remains largely uncharted due to the number of experimental challenges. Here, we take an alternative route and design a classical structure based on topolectrical circuits which serves as a simulator of a quantum-optical one-dimensional system featuring the topological state of two photons induced by the effective photon-photon interaction. Employing the correspondence between the eigenstates of the original problem and circuit modes, we use the designed simulator to extract the frequencies of bulk and edge two-photon bound states and evaluate the topological invariant directly from the measurements. Furthermore, we perform a reconstruction of the two-photon probability distribution for the topological state associated with one of the circuit eigenmodes.

Tunable mantle cloaking utilizing graphene metasurface for terahertz sensing applications

Design of sensors which are able to probe electromagnetic radiation with larger cross section and at the same time with having negligible perturbation in measurement has attracted significant attention. For this purpose, scattering-cancellation sensors or cloaking sensors are introduced. However, tunable cloaking sensors are very challenging. In this regards, here, a metasurface based on graphene strips is proposed to cloak a dielectric cylinder under illumination of TE_z and TM_z polarized incident waves in terahertz range. According to the in plane effective surface impedance tensor for the considered metasurface and the required surface impedance for achieving invisibility under TE and TM polarized impinging waves, the geometrical parameters of the covering structure and characteristics of graphene are obtained. Numerical simulations show radar cross section reduction for both TE and TM polarizations. Furthermore, the introduced metasurface is able to cloak the cylinder for incoming waves with circular polarization. In addition, it is shown that by properly adjusting the chemical potential of graphene, the required surface impedance to have cloaking for the two polarizations in other frequencies can also be achieved, which results in a tunable dual polarized cloaking. The proposed structure provides 2-11 dB reduction in scattering strength relative to the uncloaked configuration for 0.3eV variation of graphene chemical potential.

Towards Printable Natural Dielectric Cloaks via Inverse Scattering Techniques

The synthesis of non-magnetic 2D dielectric cloaks as proper solutions of an inverse scattering problem is addressed in this paper. Adopting the relevant integral formulation governing the scattering phenomena, analytic and numerical approaches are exploited to provide new insights on how frequency and direction of arrival of the incoming wave may influence the cloaking mechanism in terms of permittivity distribution within the cover region. In quasi-static (subwavelength) regime a solution is analytically derived in terms of homogeneous artificial dielectric cover with ε < ε ₀, which is found to be a necessary and sufficient condition for achieving omnidirectional cloaking. On the other hand, beyond quasi-static regime, the cloaking problem is addressed as an optimization task looking for only natural dielectric coatings with ε > ε ₀ able to hide the object for a given number of directions of the incident field. Simulated results confirm the validity of both analytic and numerical methodologies and allow to estimate effective bandwidths both in terms of frequency range and direction of arrival of the impinging field.

An ideal dielectric coat to avoid prosthesis RF-artefacts in Magnetic Resonance Imaging

The number of people submitted to total hip or knee arthroplasty increased in the last years and it is likely to grow further. Hence, the importance of a proper investigation tool that allows to determine and recognize the potential presence of perioperative and/or postoperative diseases becomes clear. Although the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technique demonstrated several advantages over the other common tomography tools, it suffers from the arise of image artefacts if it is performed in presence of metallic prostheses. In particular, the so-called RF-artefacts are caused by the inhomogeneity in the radiofrequency magnetic field of MRI, due to the electric currents induced on the metal surface by the field itself. In this work, a near-zero permittivity dielectric coat is simulated to reduce those currents and, therefore, the RF-artefacts onset in the final image. Numerical results confirm that the dielectric coat strongly reduces the magnetic field inhomogeneity, suggesting a possible solution to a well-known problem in the MRI field.

Invisibility and cloaking structures as weak or strong solutions of Devaney-Wolf theorem

Inspired by a general theorem on non-radiating sources demonstrated by Devaney and Wolf, a unified theory for invisible and cloaking structures is here proposed. By solving Devaney-Wolf theorem in the quasi-static limit, a weak solution is obtained, demonstrating the existence of Anapole modes, Mantle Cloaking and Plasmonic Cloaking. Beyond the quasi-static regime, a strong solution of Devaney-Wolf theorem can be formulated, predicting general non-scattering devices based on directional invisibility, Transformation Optics, neutral inclusions and refractive index continuity. Both weak and strong solutions are analytically demonstrated to depend on the concept of contrast, mathematically defined as a normalized difference between constitutive parameters (or wave-impedance property) of a material and its surrounding background.