The effects of water on an on-body monopole diversity antenna pair at 1800MHz

Abstract

This paper presents the effect of water on a pair of 1.8GHz on-body diversity monopole antennas mounted on the forearm of a sitting male static volunteer. Application of a water layer to the forearm was seen to both reduce efficiency and increase directivity leading to a slight overall increase in gain. Increased gain was shown to increase antenna correlation thereby reducing diversity gain in the antenna pair.