1846

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 54, NO. 4, APRIL 2006

Small Planar UWB Antennas in Proximity of the Human Head

Zhi Ning Chen, Senior Member, IEEE, Ailian Cai, Terence S. P. See, Xianming Qing, and Michael Yan Wah Chia
AbstractThe effects of a human head on the performance of small planar ultra-wideband (UWB) antennas in proximity of the head are investigated numerically and experimentally. In simulation, a numerical head model is used in the XFDTD software package. The head model developed by REMCOM is with the frequency-dependent dielectric constant and conductivity obtained from the average data of anatomical human heads. Two types of planar antennas printed on printed circuit board (PCB) are designed to cover the UWB band. The impedance and radiation performance of the antennas are examined when the antennas are placed very close to the human head. The study shows that the human head slightly affects the impedance performance of the antennas. The radiated eld distributions and the gain of the antennas demonstrate that the human head signicantly blocks and absorbs the radiation from the antennas so that the radiation patterns are directional in the horizontal planes and the average gain greatly decreases. The information derived from the study is helpful to engineers who are applying UWB devices around/on human heads. Index TermsHuman-body proximity effect, planar antenna, pulse radiation, ultra-wideband (UWB), UWB antenna, wearable wireless devices.

Fig. 1. Head geometry and antenna placement. (Color version available online at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.)

TABLE I CONDUCTIVITY AND PERMITTIVITY OF MATERIALS INSIDE THE HUMAN HEAD AT 3, 7, AND 10 GHz

I. INTRODUCTION

N ULTRA-WIDEBAND (UWB) wireless communication systems, the design and deployment of antennas have some special considerations due to very short and low-power impulsed signals [1], [2]. Essentially, the antennas are expected to efciently transmit impulsed signals with less distortion. For portable UWB applications, the antennas should be small or low in prole to keep the system compact. In particular, for wearable UWB wireless applications such as sensors, computers, or wireless devices, the antennas must be small in size, low in prole, and unobtrusive to the users [3]. Usually, the wearable antennas are placed in proximity of a human body or head. From an electromagnetic eld point of view, the human body can be considered as an irregular, inhomogeneous, and lossy dielectric object positioned near the antennas. The effect of the human body on the performance of the antenna must be taken into account in the antenna design, because the characteristics of impedance matching, radiation patterns, and

Manuscript received August 1, 2005; revised January 16, 2006. This work was presented in part at the IEEE International Conference on Ultra-Wideband, Zurich, Switzerland, September 2005. The authors are with the Institute for Infocomm Research, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore 117674 (e-mail: chenzn@i2r.a-tar.edu.sg; alcai@i2r.a-star.edu.sg; spsee@i2r.a-star.edu.sg; qingxm@i2r.a-star.edu.sg; chiamichael@i2r.a-star.edu.sg). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TMTT.2006.872059

gain of the antennas may be severely affected [4]. It should be noted that the issues arising from wearable UWB antennas are different from those of handheld phones. The power radiated from handheld phones is usually much higher than for wearable devices, where the specic absorption rate (SAR) by a human head must be seriously examined for health considerations.

0018-9480/$20.00 2006 IEEE

CHEN et al.: SMALL PLANAR UWB ANTENNAS IN PROXIMITY OF THE HUMAN HEAD

1847

Fig. 4. Comparison of simulated and measured return losses in free space. Fig. 2. (a) Setup for return loss test. (b) Setup for radiation patterns test. (Color version available online at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.)

Fig. 5. Comparison of return losses of Antenna I in free space and with the head for the gap of 0, 5, and 15 mm.

Fig. 3. (a) Geometry of antenna I and coordinate system. (b) Fabricated antenna: radiator side and ground plane side. (Color version available online at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.) Fig. 6. Maximum gain along: (a) the x-axis and (b) the y -axis.

Similar to Bluetooth applications with low-power radiation, much attention has been devoted to the effect of a human body on the RF signal transmission and the antenna performance in the UWB applications. Therefore, this paper emphasizes the effects of a human head on the impedance and radiation performance of UWB antennas in proximity of the human head. As examples, two types of small planar antennas printed on printed circuit board

(PCB), namely, dipole-like and wide-aperture antennas, are designed. The effects of the human head on the performance of the antenna are examined using a nite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The impedance matching, radiation patterns, and gain of the antennas as well as their radiated eld distributions around the human head are examined. In the

1848

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 54, NO. 4, APRIL 2006

Fig. 7. Maximum gain along the: (a) x-axis, (b)

0x-axis, (c) y -axis, (d) 0y axis,and (e) z -axis.

centered at 3, 7, and 10 GHz was used to simulate the radiation patterns using 2000 time steps. The measurement setups are shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 2(a) shows the setup for measuring the return loss. The antenna supported by a wooden/plastic stand was placed beside the right ear with a 2-mm separation. Fig. 2(b) illustrates the setup for the radiation pattern tests, where a man (the rst author) stood at a turntable controlled by a remote positioner in an electromagnetic anechoic chamber. It should be noted that, with this setup, only plane or horizontal plane can the radiation patterns in the be measured. III. ANTENNA I To study the effect of the human head on the performance of a UWB antenna, a small planar antenna was designed to cover the UWB band. The antenna was etched on a 25 mm 30 mm PCB . with a thickness of 1.5 mm and dielectric constant Its geometry is shown in Fig. 3(a). The radiator is made up of a 15 mm 15 mm square joined by a horizontal strip of 5 mm 1 mm at the top of the square. The asymmetric strip is used to reduce the height of the antenna. A 50- microstrip line with a 4-mm width and 15-mm length excites the bottom of the square and was etched on the same side of the PCB as the radiator. The 25 mm 14-mm system ground plane was etched on the other side of the PCB beneath the microstrip line. The feed gap between the radiator and the upper edge of the system ground plane is 1 mm. The impedance matching can be improved by varying the feed gap, position of the feed point, the length of the strip, and the size of the ground plane [7], [8]. The left edge of the feeding strip is offset 3 mm from the left edge of the radiator to achieve good impedance matching.

investigation, a numerical head model developed by REMCOM and incorporated in an XFDTD software package is used.

II. HUMAN HEAD, SIMULATION, AND MEASUREMENT In the study, a numerical human head model was used. The anatomical human head with two shoulders used in XFDTD is comprised of 24 biological tissues which include mainly the skin, bone, brain, muscle, humor, lens, and cornea, as shown in Fig. 1 (i.e., an adult male head). The dielectric constant and conductivity of the tissues are frequency-dependent, as shown in Table I. Therefore, the model can be considered as an irregular, inhomogeneous, and lossy dielectric object. The dielectric constant and conductivity of the dispersive materials use a three-pole Debye curve t to the estimated tissue values. The estimated tissue values are based on the ColeCole model [6]. The antenna was positioned near the right ear of the human head. The center of the antenna is placed at the origin of the coordinate system, 143 mm from the top of the head and 95.5 mm from the back of the head. In the simulations, the gap between the antenna and the head has been varied from 0 to 15 mm. In the FDTD simulations, the mesh cell size of mm mm mm with respect to , , and axes and a time step of 1.926 ps were used to meet the two main constraints for the highest frequency of 10.6 GHz in the UWB band. The two constraints are and , where is the spafrom is the wavelength of the highest frequency tial step size, under investigation, is the time step, and is the speed of light. For the simulation to achieve convergence, the impedance performance was calculated using a Gaussian monocycle of a pulsewidth using 3000 time steps. The sinusoidal source

CHEN et al.: SMALL PLANAR UWB ANTENNAS IN PROXIMITY OF THE HUMAN HEAD

1849

Fig. 8. Distributions of magnitudes of elds around the human head for Antenna I. (a) Electric elds. (Color version available online at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.)

Fig. 3(b) shows the photograph of the fabricated antenna. A 50- subminiature A (SMA) was used to connect the feeding

strip and its outer side grounded to the ground plane. The overall size is similar to the 50-cent coin of the Singapore dollar.

1850

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 54, NO. 4, APRIL 2006

Fig. 8. (Continued.) Distributions of magnitudes of elds around human head for Antenna I. (b) Magnetic elds. (Color version available online at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.)

Fig. 4 compares the simulated and measured return losses of the antenna in free space. Due to the effect of the RF cable used in the measurements, ripples occur particularly at the lower frequencies. The results show the good impedance matching across the bandwidth of 3.212 GHz for the 10-dB return loss.

Fig. 5 compares the simulated return losses of the antenna in free space and placed on/near the head. The comparison shows that the presence of the head acts as a load and slightly affects the impedance matching. The change in return loss could be due to both the impedance matching at the lower frequencies

CHEN et al.: SMALL PLANAR UWB ANTENNAS IN PROXIMITY OF THE HUMAN HEAD

1851

Fig. 8. (Continued.) Distributions of magnitudes of elds around human head for Antenna I. (c) Induced electric currents on the antenna and human head. (Color version available online at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.)

and the power absorption by the head, especially at the higher frequencies [9]. Therefore, the human head has a slight effect on the impedance matching of the antenna, though the effects of the head on the return losses for the 0- and 5-mm cases are larger as compared with the 15-mm case. Fig. 6(a) and (b) shows the maximum total gain (including and components) against frethe contributions from both quency in free space and with the head. It is seen from Fig. 6(a) that, along the -axis, the gain decreases by 20 dB due to the blocking and absorption by the head, whereas the gain slightly increases at the higher frequencies due to the reection by the -axis direction. head in the As can be seen from Fig. 6(b), in the -axis, the gain is reduced by around 10 dB when the frequency is lower than 4 GHz.

In particular, the gain decreases greatly in both free space and with the head at around 5 GHz. Similarly, at the higher frequencies, the gain increases slightly due to the reection of the radiated electromagnetic elds from the head. Therefore, the total electromagnetic elds outside the head are the sum of the scattered elds by the head and radiated elds directly from the antenna along the -axis direction [4]. Fig. 7 examines the effect of the distance between the antenna and human head on the gain. Fig. 7(a) shows that the radiated elds from the antenna are blocked signicantly with more than 20-dB attenuation for the cases at various distances. Along the -axis, the gain is almost the same as that in free space as shown in Fig. 7(b). Fig. 7(c) and (d) shows the effect of the varying distances on gain along the -axis. A smaller distance

1852

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 54, NO. 4, APRIL 2006

Fig. 9 (a) Comparison of measured and simulated radiation patterns in the xy plane. Radiation patterns of Antenna I in free space and with a head in: (b) the xz plane, (c) the yz plane, and (d) the xy plane.

between the antenna and the head results in a larger attenuation of the maximum gain. Due to the effects of the shoulder and head, the attenuation of the maximum gain along -axis is also increased with the reduction in the distance between the antenna and the head, as shown in Fig. 7(e). Fig. 8 shows the distribution of the radiated elds around the and planes, respectively. The distribuhuman head in the tions of the radiated E- and H-elds as well as induced electric currents around and inside the human head are investigated at different time stages, namely, the 61st, 221st, and 321st time steps. From the eld distributions, as shown in Fig. 8(a) and (b), it is clear that the radiation of the elds from the antenna is greatly blocked by the human head so that the attenuation of the radiation from the antenna along the -axis is more than 70 dB. In the horizontal plane, the radiation is mainly focused on the side where the antenna is positioned. The omnidirectional radiation of the antenna in free space has become more directional in the horizontal plane ( plane) due to the reection and absorption by the human head. In the vertical cut ( plane), the radiation is directed to the human shoulders. The eld distributions clearly show the blockage, reection, and absorption effects of the human head on the radiation. This observation sug-

gests that, due to the signicant proximity effect of the human head on the radiation from the antennas, the positioning of the antennas for the transmission of UWB signals around the human head/body should be a critical consideration in system design. Moreover, the radiated elds penetrate the human head partially at the later time stages. The elds induce the electric currents on/in the human head around the ear up to a certain depth, as shown in Fig. 8(c). Moreover, the observation of the H-eld distribution has shown that the most of the energy from the H-eld has penetrated and absorbed by the head without a second radiation out of the head. This phenomenon is not manifested for the E-eld scenario. Furthermore, the radiation patterns at 3, 7, and 10 GHz were plane and compared in the , , and measured in the planes by simulations with or without the head. The meacomponents with sured and simulated radiation patterns for plane are compared in and withoutthe human head in the Fig. 9(a). The measured results have validated the simulated ones, although the numerical model in the XFDTD software, which has been based on statistical analysis, will denitely be different from the real human head in tests. Therefore, the difference between the simulated and measured results is acceptable,

CHEN et al.: SMALL PLANAR UWB ANTENNAS IN PROXIMITY OF THE HUMAN HEAD

1853

TABLE II AVERAGE AND MAXIMUM GAIN AT 3, 7, AND 10 GHz

Fig. 10. Geometry of Antenna II and coordinate system.

Fig. 12. Maximum gain along: (a) the x-axis, (b) the y -axis, and (c) the z -axis.

lower frequencies, the average gain is lower than at higher frequencies. The larger maximum gain at higher frequencies indicates that the radiation from the antenna has become more directional than that at lower frequencies. IV. ANTENNA II
Fig. 11. Comparison of return losses for Antenna II in free space and with the head.

and the analysis of the inuence of the human head on the radiation performance of the antenna can be carried out by simulation, as shown in Fig. 9(b)(d). Basically, the antenna features and compoa nearly omnidirectional radiation for both nents. It is seen that, at all of the frequencies, there is consistent distortion along the directions where the head and shoulder are placed. Table II gives the average and maximum gain in three principle , , and planes. In the plane (the horizontal plane of interest), the highest average gain has been observed. At the

For comparison, another planar antenna with a wide aperture is designed as shown in Fig. 10 [10]. The antenna comprises of an annular ground plane and a Y-shaped feed. The two 36-mm PCB portions were etched onto two sides of a 28 ). An SMA connector (Roger 4003; thickness: 1 mm, excites the Y-shaped portion through a 7 2-mm microstrip line. By varying the dimensions of the upper sector of the Y-shaped portion, the impedance matching of the antenna can be controlled. The antenna will have the same coordinate system as in Fig. 1. Fig. 11 shows the return loss of the antenna with the dimensions given in Fig. 10. The antenna has a well-matched response across the bandwidth of 38.6 GHz in free space. The return loss decreases in particular at lower frequencies when the antenna

1854

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 54, NO. 4, APRIL 2006

Fig. 13. Radiation patterns of Antenna II in free space and with a head in (a) the xz plane, (b) the yz plane, and (c) the xy plane.

is placed near the human head. The human head has absorbed part of the radiated energy and has affected the impedance matching. Fig. 12 depicts the gain with frequency along the -, -, and -axes when the Antenna II is in free space and with the human head. The effect of the head on the gain is signicant, as observed in Fig. 6 for Antenna I. However, the variation in the gain for Antenna II is less as compared with Antenna I, especially at higher frequencies along the - and -axes. It is clear that the gain has dramatically increased by more than 20 dB along the -axis due to the reection by the shoulder below the antenna. planes at 3, 7, The radiation patterns in the , , and and 10 GHz are shown in Fig. 13. Compared with Antenna I, the radiation patterns for Antenna II are monopole-like with lower cross-polarization components at 3 GHz. At lower frequencies, the head absorbs more energy radiated from the antenna and increases the cross-polarized components, whereas, at higher frequencies, the head mainly acts as a reector to enhance the -axis. radiation along the

It is readily seen from the radiation patterns and maximum gain for Antennas I and II that, in general, the human head functions as a reector (mainly at higher frequencies) and an absorber (mainly at lower frequencies). The coupling between the antenna and head affects the impedance matching as well but not greatly. The observations on the blockage and absorption of the radiation from the antenna by the human head will provide information to the system designers for their RF-link budget of wearable UWB-enabled devices deployed on or around the human head. Fig. 14 illustrates the distribution of the radiated elds around and planes, respectively. The disthe human head in the tributions of the radiated E-elds around and inside the human head are investigated at the 61st, 221st, and 321st time steps. Basically, they are similar to those shown in Fig. 8(a), and radiation has been greatly blocked by the human head. At the later time, it is seen that the radiated eld propagating along the -axis is -axis. Compared with those much weaker than that along the and planes shown in Fig. 8(a), the radiation in both the is stronger and more directional. This information is useful for

CHEN et al.: SMALL PLANAR UWB ANTENNAS IN PROXIMITY OF THE HUMAN HEAD

1855

Fig. 14. Distributions of magnitude of electric elds around human head for Antenna II. (Color version available online at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.)

the engineers who deploy wearable UWB devices around/on the human body to achieve on-body or body-to-body wireless connection. V. CONCLUSION The proximity effects of the human head on the impedance and radiation performance of the two types of planar antennas

have been examined in terms of impedance matching, gain, radiation patterns, and induced electric currents. The numerical and experimental investigations have shown that the impedance performance of the antennas placed near the human head has been slightly affected. However, due to the power absorption by the human head and shoulder, reection by the head, the radiation performance of the antennas has been affected signicantly

1856

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 54, NO. 4, APRIL 2006

in terms of radiation patterns as well as average and maximum gain. In particular, the radiation has become much more directed in the horizontal planes of interest because the human head acts as a reector and absorber when the antennas are placed close to the human head. The induced electric currents have been found on and even in the human head (around the ear), which region the antenna is positioned close to although it is very weak. This study has provided system designers useful information of RF-link budget for promising wearable UWB applications. REFERENCES
[1] Z. N. Chen, X. H. Wu, N. Yang, and M. Y. W. Chia, Considerations for source pulses and antennas in UWB radio systems, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 52, no. 7, pp. 17391748, Jul. 2004. [2] Z. N. Chen and M. Y. W. Chia, Broadband Planar Antennas: Design and Applications. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley, 2005. [3] M. Billinghurst and T. Starner, Wearable devices: New ways to manage information, Computer, vol. 32, pp. 5764, Jan. 1999. [4] H. R. Chuang and W. T. Chen, Numerical computation of EM interaction between human body and loop antennas with arbitrary orientation, in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Antennas Propag., Jul. 1318, 1997, vol. 2, pp. 11861189. [5] Z. N. Chen, A. Cai, T. See, and M. Y. W. Chia, Small planar UWB antennas in proximity of human head, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. UltraWideband, Sep. 58, 2005, pp. 286289. [6] Y. Zhang, Z. N. Chen, and M. Y. W. Chia, Effects of nite ground plane and dielectric substrate on planar dipoles for UWB applications, in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Antennas Propag., Jun. 2026, 2004, pp. 25122515. [7] M. J. Ammann and Z. N. Chen, An asymmetrical feed arrangement for improved impedance bandwidth of planar monopole antennas, Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 156158, Jan. 20, 2004. [8] C. Gabriel, Compilation of the dielectric properties of body tissues at RF and microwave frequencies Brooks Air Force Tech. Rep. AL/OE TR 1996 0037, 1996. [9] K. Ogawa, T. Matsuyoshi, and K. Monma, An analysis of the performance of a handset diversity antenna inuenced by head, hand and shoulder effects at 900 MHz, in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Antennas Propag., Jul. 1116, 1999, vol. 2, pp. 11221125. [10] X. M. Qing, Y. M. W. Chia, and X. H. Wu, Wide-slot antenna for UWB applications, in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Antennas Propag., Jun. 2003, vol. 1, pp. 834837.

two books Broadband Planar Antennas and UWB Communications (Wiley, 2005).Two patents were granted and the seven patent applications were led. His main research interests include applied electromagnetics, antenna theory and design. Particularly, he focuses on small and broad-band antennas and arrays for wireless communications systems, such as multiinput multioutput (MIMO) systems and ultrawide-band (UWB) systems, and RF imaging systems. Dr. Chen was a Member of the Technical Program Committee and an Organizer/Chair of the UWB technology workshops at the IEEE Radio and Wireless Conference in 2003 and 2004. He organized and chaired the special sessions on Antennas for UWB Wireless Communication Systems at the IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation in 2003 and 2004, as well as the IEEE Asia and Pacic Microwave Conference, Korea, in 2003. He was a Member of the International Committee of EUROEM 2004 and of the Technical Committee of the IASTED International Conference on Antennas, Radar, and Wave Propagation in 2004, 2005 as well as for IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference 2005, USA. He founded the IEEE International Workshop on Antenna Technology (IEEE iWAT) and as General Chair, organized the IEEE iWAT: Small Antennas and Novel Metamaterials, 2005, Singapore.

Ailian Cai was born in Singapore on July 11, 1982. She received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering from the National University of Singapore, Singapore, in 2005, and is currently working toward the M.S. degree at the National University of Singapore. She joined the Institute of Infocomm Research, Singapore, in 2005, and is working on RFID antennas. Her research interests include ultra-wideband planar and RFID antenna design.

Zhi Ning Chen (M99SM05) received the B.Eng., M.Eng., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Institute of Communications Engineering (ICE), Nanjing, China, and the Do.E. degree from the University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan. He was with ICE as a Teaching Assistant, Lecturer, and Associate Professor. After that, he joined Southeast University, Nanjing, China, as a Postdoctoral Fellow and then Associate Professor. In 1995, he pursued his research at the City University of Hong Kong. From 1997 to 1999, he worked in at the University of Tsukuba, as a Research Fellow through an award by Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS). In 1999, he joined the Institute for Infocomm Research (I R) [formerly known as Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC) and Institute for Communications Research (ICR)] as a Member of Technical Staff (MTS) and then as a Principal MTS. In 2001 and 2004, he visited the University of Tsukuba, under a senior-level Invitation Fellowship Program of JSPS. In 2004, he conducted his research at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY, as an Academic Visitor (Antenna Designer). He is now working as a Lead Scientist, the Head of the Antenna Laboratory, and the Manager for Department of Radio Systems at the Institute for Infocomm Research (I R). He is concurrently holding the appointments of Adjunct Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technologies University (NTU), Singapore, and Adjunct Professor in the EM Academy at Zhejiang University, China. Since 1990, he has authored and coauthored over 140 technical papers published in international journals and presented at international conferences. He coedited

Terence S. P. See received the B.Eng. and M.Eng. degree in electrical engineering from the National University of Singapore, Singapore, in 2002 and 2004, respectively. In 2004, he joined the Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore. He is currently an Associate Scientist with the Antenna Laboratory, Department of Radio Systems. His main research interests include antenna design and theory, particularly in small and broadband antennas and arrays, diversity antennas, and antennas for on-body communications.

Xianming Qing was born in Sichuan Province, China, in 1965. He received the B.Eng. degree from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 1985. During 19851996, he was with UESTC for teaching and research and was appointed as a Lecturer in 1990 and an Associate Professor in 1995. In 1997, he joined the Physics Department, National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore, as a Research Scientist, where he focused on development of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) microwave devices. Since 1998, he has been with the Institute for Infocomm Research (formerly known as CWC and ICR), Singapore, and was appointed as Associate Lead Scientist. His current research interest includes UWB antennas and measurement technology, antenna co-design, RFID antennas. He has published more than 30 papers in international journals and conferences. Mr Qing has been a member of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society since 1990. He was the recipient of six awards of advancement of science and technology in China.

CHEN et al.: SMALL PLANAR UWB ANTENNAS IN PROXIMITY OF THE HUMAN HEAD

1857

Michael Yan Wah Chia was born in Singapore. He received the B.Sc. (1st Class Honors) and Ph.D. degrees from Loughborough University, Loughborough, U.K., in 1994. He joined the Center for Wireless Communications (CWC), Singapore, in 1994 as a Member of Technical Staff (MTS) and was promoted to Senior MTS, then Principal MTS, and nally Senior Principal MTS. Currently, he is the Division Director of Communications and Devices Division in the Institute for Infocomm Research (I R), Singapore. He has held various external appointments as a Member of Radio Standards Committee (Singapore) and Technical Advisory Member of Rhode and Schwartz Communications and Measurements (Asia). He has been a member of Technical Program Committees and Organizing Committees and served

as the Program co-chair for various international conferences. To date, he has published 48 international journal papers and 60 international conference papers. He also holds 10 patents, some of which have been commercialized. He began fundamental work on UWB research at I R in 1999, and his team has achieved the highest speed UWB wireless transmission at 500 Mb/s in April 2003 and again 1 Gb/s in June 2004. He is the Principal Investigator leading the development of a direct-conversion transceiver design for WLAN in collaboration with IBM in 2002, and, since April 2004 his team has also been invited into the IBM Business Partner Program for UWB-MBOA silicon design. His main research interests are wireless broadband, UWB, RFID, antenna, transceiver, radio over ber, RFIC, amplier linearization and communication, and radar system architecture. Dr. Chia was the recipient of the Overseas Research Studentship (ORS) and British Aerospace Studentship from the U.K.