The increasing usage of wireless technology has prompted the development of a new generation antenna compatible with the latest devices, with on-body antennas (wearable antennas) being one of the revolutionary applications. This modern design is relevant in technologies that require close human body contact, such as telemedicine and identification systems, due to its superior performance compared to normal antennas. Some of its finer characteristics include flexibility, reflection coefficient, bandwidth, directivity, gain, radiation, specific absorption rate (SAR), and efficiency that are anticipated to be influenced by the coupling and absorption by the human body tissues. Furthermore, improvements like band-gap structure and artificial magnetic conductors (AMC) and (DGS) are included in the wearable antenna that offers a high degree of isolation from the human body and significantly reduces SAR. In this paper, the development of on-body antennas and how they are affected by the human body were reviewed. Additionally, parameters that affect the performance of this new antenna model, such as materials and common technologies, are included as an auxiliary study for researchers to determine the factors affecting the performance of the wearable antenna and the access to a highly efficient antenna.

This study proposed the dimensions of 55 mm × 34 mm × 1 mm for wearable antenna; the copper Y-slot patch and copper partial ground are attached to a felt substrate. The partial ground has the higher impact in antenna gain enhancement compared with the full ground, making it the most suitable candidate for wearable applications and suitable for embedding in fabrics for use in medical applications. In addition, the proposed antenna design combined a fabric–metal barrier operated at 2.4 GHz 65.4% with a low specific absorption rate (SAR) of 0.01 watts per kilogramme (W/kg) and 0.006 W/kg per 10 g and a gain of 6.48 dBi. The proposed antenna has an omnidirectional radiation pattern. The two-layer barrier is designed to achieve high electromagnetic (EM) absorption and reduce the antenna’s absorption coefficient (SAR) for safe use in applications involving human activities. Simulation and measurement results on the arm and the head of the human body indicated that the antenna has excellent performance. In addition, the measurement results agreed well with the simulation results, making the proposed wearable antenna reliable for medical and 5G applications.