ECE Department Develops Metamaterial-Enhanced Wearable Antenna for Infant Healthcare

The Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering at Shri Madhwa Vadiraja Institute of Technology and Management has successfully developed a metamaterial-enhanced wearable antenna for infant skin, designed to enable safe, reliable, and continuous healthcare monitoring for newborns and infants.

The innovative flexible antenna is specifically designed to be seamlessly integrated into infant clothing, ensuring comfortable usage without restricting the baby’s natural movement. With a strong focus on compactness, enhanced performance, flexibility, and safety, the design has been developed to comply with international standards for safe electromagnetic exposure, making it suitable for sensitive infant healthcare environments.

The wearable antenna offers promising applications in continuous infant health monitoring, enabling the tracking of essential physiological parameters such as body temperature, heart rate, and breathing patterns. The system is particularly beneficial in settings such as Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs), while also supporting home-based infant healthcare monitoring for parents and caregivers.

By enabling real-time wireless communication, the system allows doctors and parents to monitor an infant’s health remotely, facilitating timely medical intervention whenever required. The innovation also strengthens telemedicine and remote healthcare support, helping reduce the need for frequent hospital visits while ensuring continuous observation of infant well-being.

This project represents an important step toward smarter, safer, and more accessible healthcare solutions for newborns and infants, showcasing how emerging engineering technologies can contribute meaningfully to healthcare innovation and patient safety.

The project was sponsored by the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology and was successfully carried out by final-year students Ananya Bhaskar, Deepa K. Karkera, Dhanush S.S., and Nisha under the guidance of Mr. Sandeepa Prabhu, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, SMVITM.