Non‐uniform mesh for embroidered microstrip antennas

Abstract

This study presents a non‐uniform meshed embroidered structure for wearable microstrip patch antennas. The non‐uniform meshed patch antenna (NMPA) has significantly less conductor coverage than a conventional patch antenna without significantly compromise the antenna performance. For wearable applications, less conductor coverage reduces the usage of the specialised conductive materials which are currently expensive. The embroidered NMPA reduced manufacturing cost and improves the flexibility. In this study, the surface current distribution and the effect of the meshing size of NMPAs have been simulated and analysed. Fully textile embroidered NMPA on felt substrate has been fabricated and measured. Representative results showed the NMPA had a 60% total antenna efficiency with 20% conductor area coverage.

Wearable and meshed wideband monopole antennas and their interactions with the human body

“…The thickness of the metallisation was reduced to 1 µm and the conductivity was reduced to 1 mS/m. This approximately emulates metallisation thickness and the material conductivity in inkjet printing or embroidery [27]. The results are labelled ‘Em’ in Fig.…”

Novel Stitched Ground Plane Optimizations for Microstrip Patch Antennas at Wi-Fi and WiMAX Applications

“…The majority of the studied carried out onfabricantennas in the literature is centred around microstrip patch antennas as a result of its advantages of miniaturisation, low profile, compactness, ease of integration in clothing materials and Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation good radiation patterns. Fabric antennas consist of upper and lower conductive layers of antenna patchs and ground plane and a middle layer of dielectric substrate [1] [2] [3] [4]. A planar structure is a basic requirement for wearable textile antenna.…”

“…Textile antennas have been designed to be body-worn while in use for various applications. These textile antennas are used in systems, since they are flexible, for detecting body motion during exercise activity, monitoring heart rate and blood pressure [1]- [6]. The basic requirements for wearable electronics include portability during operation, operation consistency, controllability and robustness that guarantee a good fitness of the electronic to the human body application.…”

“…In the study carried out [10] [11] meshed patch antennas have similar properties to conventional microstrip patch antenna since uses less metal making them optically transparent. In [1] [2] nonuniform meshed patch antennas (NMPAs) were compared to a copper equivalent NMPA and embroidered NMPA, it is concluded that the antennas have high antenna gain with reduced thread usage but meshing causes a decrease in front to back radiation.…”

Recent Advances in Fabrication Methods for Flexible Antennas in Wearable Devices: State of the Art

“…Moreover, in order to decrease the cost of the embroidering techniques, a non-uniform embroidery technique was presented [42]. In this method, the conductive threads were embroidered non-uniformly across the antenna patch, following a more precise observation of the current distribution of a fundamental-mode rectangular patch.…”