Applying textile materials for the design of antennas for wireless body area networks

The design and manufacturing of several new textile-based rectangular-ring antennas for body area networks operating in the ISM-band (2.4 GHz-2.4835 GHz) is described. Fleece fabric is applied as antenna substrate, whereas the conducting antenna plane and ground plane are constructed based on a commercially available electrotextile called Flectron. We compare the characteristics of two prototypes that were assembled using different glueing techniques. The influence of bending on the characteristics is investigated. The proposed antennas are the first circularly polarised antennas that cover a bandwidth of more than 190 MHz, using a substrate material with a thickness less than 3 mm. The antennas provide sufficient antenna gain for use in practical wireless links. They allow direct integration into garments.

[1]  P. Leuchtmann,et al.  A flexible wearable antenna , 2004, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Symposium, 2004..

[2]  Robert Puers,et al.  Towards the integration of textile sensors in a wireless monitoring suit , 2004 .

[3]  Dirk Matthys,et al.  Intelligent textiles for protection , 2005 .

[4]  Paul Leitch,et al.  Interactive Textiles: New Materials in the New Millennium. Part 1 , 2000 .

[5]  Richard A. Scott,et al.  Textiles for Protection , 2005 .

[6]  Hendrik Rogier,et al.  DESIGN OF TEXTILE ANTENNAS FOR SMART CLOTHING , 2006 .

[7]  Hendrik Rogier,et al.  Robust planar textile antenna for wireless body LANs operating in 2.45 GHz ISM band , 2006 .

[8]  G. Troster,et al.  A novel circularly polarized textile antenna for wearable applications , 2004, 7th European Conference on Wireless Technology, 2004..

[9]  Y. Rahmat-Samii,et al.  Dual-band wearable textile antenna , 2004, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Symposium, 2004..

[10]  M. Kivikoski,et al.  Wearable antennas in the vicinity of human body , 2004, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Symposium, 2004..