Efficiency measurement of the flexible on-body antenna at varying levels of stretch in a reverberation chamber.

Flexible antennas have the potential to transform wearable and fabric-based wireless sensing technologies. The antenna discussed in this study is part of a sensing system that uses the back-scattered power level as the decision metric. For a good wireless sensor, it is necessary to offer a feasible read range and maintain good distinctions in the back-scattered power levels between the different states (i.e. level of stretch) of the antenna. Moreover, effects due to human body proximity should be minimised. For these reasons, the radiation efficiency is a crucial parameter to investigate. This study presents the radiation efficiency measurement of the proposed flexible knitted `Bellyband' antenna at two different levels of stretch in a reverberation chamber. This work validates the reverberation chamber measurements through comparison with simulations and anechoic chamber measurements at 900 MHz. Moreover, this work demonstrates how the approach can be used to quantify bellyband antenna efficiency in the vicinity of a human body. Finally, the efficiency results were used to predict the read range of Bellyband radio frequency identification technology.