A review paper concerning wide-band and ultra-wideband (UWB) antennas used for wireless communication purposes in terms of the materials as well as a numerical analysis is presented. These antennas which are taken into account are listed as wide-band microstrip antenna, wide-band monopole antenna over a plate, wide-slot UWB antenna, stacked patch UWB antenna, taper slot (TSA) UWB antenna, metamaterial (MTM) structure UWB antennas, elliptical printed monopole UWB antenna, and flexible wearable UWB antenna. The antennas’ performance is compared based on their size and how they can be applicable for portable communication device applications. This review paper furnishes a proper direction to select varieties of figures in terms of impedance bandwidth, gain, directivity, dimensions, time domain characteristics, and materials affecting these antenna’s characteristics.

Wireless body area network (WBAN) applications have broad utility in monitoring patient health and transmitting the data wirelessly. WBAN can greatly benefit from wearable antennas. Wearable antennas provide comfort and continuity of the monitoring of the patient. Therefore, they must be comfortable, flexible, and operate without excessive degradation near the body. Most wearable antennas use a truncated ground, which increases specific absorption rate (SAR) undesirably. A full ground ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna is proposed and utilized here to attain a broad bandwidth while keeping SAR in the acceptable range based on both 1 g and 10 g standards. It is designed on a denim substrate with a dielectric constant of 1.4 and thickness of 0.7 mm alongside the ShieldIt conductive textile. The antenna is fed using a ground coplanar waveguide (GCPW) through a substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) transition. This transition creates a perfect match while reducing SAR. In addition, the proposed antenna has a bandwidth (BW) of 7–28 GHz, maximum directive gain of 10.5 dBi and maximum radiation efficiency of 96%, with small dimensions of 60 × 50 × 0.7 mm³. The good antenna’s performance while it is placed on the breast shows that it is a good candidate for both breast cancer imaging and WBAN.

This review paper combs through reports that have enhanced antenna gain for ultra-wideband (UWB) frequencies using frequency-selective surface (FSS) techniques. The FSS techniques found across the research landscape were mapped onto a taxonomy in order to determine the most effective method for improving antenna gain. Additionally, this study looked into the motivation behind using FSS as a reflector in UWB frequencies to obtain directional radiation. The FSS suits multiple applications due to its exceptional ability to minimize power loss in undesired transmission areas in the antenna, as well as to hinder the interference that may occur from undesirable and wasted radiation. An efficient way to obtain constant gain over a wide range of frequencies is also elaborated in this paper. Essentially, this paper offers viable prescription to enhance antenna gain for UWB applications. Methods: A comprehensive study was performed using several imminent keywords, such as “high gain using FSS”, “gain enhancement using FSS”, “high gain UWB antennas”, and “gain enhancement of UWB antennas”, in different modifications to retrieve all related articles from three primary engines: Web of Science (WoS), IEEE Xplore, and Science Direct. Results: The 41 papers identified after a comprehensive literature review were classified into two categories. The FSS single- and multi-layer reflectors were reported in 25 and 16 papers, respectively. New direction: An effective method is proposed for FSS miniaturization and for obtaining constant gain over UWB frequencies while maintaining the return loss at −10 dB. Conclusion: The use of FSS is indeed effective and viable for gain enhancement in UWB antennas. This systematic review unravels a vast range of opportunities for researchers to bridge the identified gaps.

In this work, a miniaturized and highly sensitive microwave sensor based on a complementary split-ring resonator (CSRR) is proposed for the detection of liquid materials. The modeled sensor was designed based on the CSRR structure with triple rings (TRs) and a curve feed for improved measurement sensitivity. The designed sensor oscillates at a single frequency of 2.5 GHz, which is simulated using an Ansys HFSS simulator. The electromagnetic simulation explains the basis of the mode resonance of all two-port resonators. Five variations of the liquid media under tests (MUTs) are simulated and measured. These liquid MUTs are as follows: without a sample (without a tube), air (empty tube), ethanol, methanol, and distilled water (DI). A detailed sensitivity calculation is performed for the resonance band at 2.5 GHz. The MUTs mechanism is performed with a polypropylene tube (PP). The samples of dielectric material are filled into PP tube channels and loaded into the CSRR center hole; the E-fields around the sensor affect the relationship with the liquid MUTs, resulting in a high Q-factor value. The final sensor has a Q-factor value and sensitivity of 520 and 7.032 (MHz)/ε_r) at 2.5 GHz, respectively. Due to the high sensitivity of the presented sensor for characterizing various liquid penetrations, the sensor is also of interest for accurate estimations of solute concentrations in liquid media. Finally, the relationship between the permittivity and Q-factor value at the resonant frequency is derived and investigated. These given results make the presented resonator ideal for the characterization of liquid materials.

This paper presents a metamaterial-based flexible wearable ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna for breast imaging and wireless body area network (WBAN) applications. The wearable antenna is required to be a planar and low-profile structure using flexible materials. The proposed antenna comprises two layers of denim (10 × 10 mm²) and felt (10 × 15 mm²). The antenna was integrated with six metamaterial unit cells using a modified grain rice shape within a split ring resonator to enhance the bandwidth, gain, and directivity and reduce the specific absorption rate value to less than 2 W/kg. The proposed antenna operates within a broad bandwidth range (6.5 GHz–35 GHz) with the maximum gain and directivity of 8.85 dBi and 10 dBi, respectively, and a radiation efficiency of more than 70% over its operating frequency band. The results verified good agreement between the simulation and measurement of the proposed technique in detecting an existing tumor with a diameter of 4 mm from any location inside the breast. The results convincingly proved the capability of the proposed wearable UWB antenna system for both WBAN and breast imaging applications.