Design and experimental evaluation of a novel on‐body textile antenna for unicast applications

Abstract

A symmetric multilayered embroidered textile antenna is proposed in this article. The proposed antenna is designed at industrial, scientific, and medical band frequency of 2.45 GHz, to be used as a wearable made of Zari and cotton cloth. An end‐to‐end slot has been introduced to improve return loss and efficiency. The four‐layered antenna is fabricated using conventional embroidery and the layers are sewn together to form the entire structure. Measurements on the fabricated antenna are performed to validate the characteristics of the structure in bent, crumpled, and wet conditions. Results with regard to return loss, gain, bandwidth, and radiation pattern were presented to prove the usefulness of the structure. Furthermore, the antenna was integrated with Arduino Uno development board and tested for data transmission as a wearable system.

Electrically Conductive Textile Materials—Application in Flexible Sensors and Antennas

“…In Wang et al's research, the conductive material used for the radiating patch consisted of a silver-coated filament embroidered on a polyester fabric then affixed to the dielectric composite substrate [73]. In an all-textile implementation of the microstrip patch antenna, bicomponent threads based on traditional Zari silver yarn wrapped around a silk core were embroidered on a cotton substrate (Figure 6) and shown by Anbalagan et al [74] to be an effective solution for a wearable antenna with robust properties and with industrial, scientific, and medical applicability.…”

Embroidered Βow-Tie Wearable Antenna for the 868 and 915 MHz ISM Bands

“…The SAR has been evaluated since the proposed antenna is intended for wearable applications. The prototype is supposed to operate in proximity to the human chest; the latter has been modeled by a four-layer rectangular model [14], as illustrated in Figure 10. The four tissue layers that constitute the model, as well as their properties, are given in Table 5; the dielectric properties have been calculated by using well known approximations [33,34].…”

“…A matter of concern may be the antenna-body interaction, since it is well known that the antenna characteristics may be affected by the presence of the human body [8][9][10][11][12]. In addition, it is essential to satisfy the international regulations for the absorption of the electromagnetic energy by the human tissues [13][14][15].…”

“…Automated embroidery of conductive e-threads has been applied for the realization of logo-shaped textile antennas [3]; promising e-fibers, with high geometrical precision, have been proposed [19] and used for the fabrication of a load-bearing spiral antenna [7]. Other configurations include an embroidered slotted patch-like multiband antenna [9], a broadband spiral antenna for off-body communications [10], a textile folded rectangular half-mode cavity antenna [20], a non-uniform meshed patch that reduces the usage of the conductive thread [5], a mixed embroidered and woven cavity-backed slot antenna [21], a four-layered, conventionally embroidered antenna with an end-to-end slot with the layers sewn together [14], a near-field communication antenna designed in the shape of a rectangular spiral coil [17], and an embroidered meander ring dipole [22]. Recently, antenna arrays have been realized in textile technology, such as a wideband array consisting of three overlapping dipoles for on-body operation [23] and a dual-polarized textile antenna array consisting of a group of embroidered patches [15].…”

Suitability of common single circuit boards for sensing and actuating in smart textiles

“…An Arduino Uno was also used by Anbalagan et al for data transmission by a textile antenna in a wearable system [32]. The Arduino, however, was not integrated into the textile material since the development of the textile antenna was the main purpose of this study.…”