Wearable Spoof Surface Plasmon Polariton Transmission Line

Abstract

In this work, we present a study of Spoof Surface Plasmon Polari-ton (SSPP) supported by a meandered Transmission Line (TL) dedicated to wireless body sensor network applications. First, dispersion curves evidence the existence of a surface wave propagation, called odd mode according to the symmetry of the magnetic field. This mode can be wirelessly excited with of a dipole antenna parallel-positioned above the meandered transmission line. Experimental part is validated with a SSPP TL fabricated on a Kapton substrate and compared with a wearable SSPP TL produced by embroidering a metallic yarn on a textile substrate. Second, transmission measurements for both SSPP TLs are also pre-sented and compared. The difference of performances achieved between involved technologies is explained by the conductivity value of the metallic yarn. Finally, the use of embroidered SSPP TL shows an improvement of the transmis-sion compared with the transmission in free space. This study is investigated in simulation and experiments by determining the dispersion curves and the transmission for two SSPP TLs.