Substrate-Integrated Waveguide Based Antenna in Remote Respiratory Sensing

Abstract

In a hospital environment, continuous respiratory monitoring is important. It could reduce mortality incidents such as in central sleep apnea. Remote monitoring can be achieved using electromagnetic (EM) waves. Experimental EM systems use horn and patch antennas which do not offer low-profile or wide bandwidth features. This thesis proposes a substrate-integrated waveguide based antenna in respiratory monitoring. A leaky-wave array antenna is designed and fabricated. It operates between 8-9 GHz. The antenna size is 300 mm × 55 mm × 0.78 mm. It offers inexpensive beam-scanning ability to scan the bed. The antenna’s beam width sufficiently covers a typical hospital bed. The fabricated antenna has measured return loss higher than 10 dB and radiates more than 90% of power in frequency range of interest. Measured main beam scans in E-plane (27◦ → 57◦) with frequency. Measured peak gain is higher than 10 dBi.