Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Wearable
Textile Antennas
Examining the effect of bending
on their performance.
T
his article presents a study on the effect of bending on the
performance of a rectangular textile-patch antenna operating
at a 2.4-GHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band.
The substrate of the antenna was made from denim textile,
and the conducting layers were made from a copper and nickel plated
polyester fabric. A parametric study was made to determine the influ-
ence of an antenna bending around its length and width on its perfor-
mance parameters in chest, leg, arm, or wrist integration for wireless
body-area network (WBAN) scenarios. Results were obtained from
bench and anechoic chamber measurements and compared with
simulation results. The prototype presents a maximum gain of
approximately 4 dBi and 70 of half-power beamwidth (HPBW) in
the flat position. When subjected to a wrist equivalent bending, the
gain decreases by 2 dB, HPBW has an increase of about 25, and
front-to-back radiation ratio decreases. Mean and standard deviation
parameters as a function of bending curvature were calculated from
parametric simulations.
BACKGROUND
The fast development of wearable low-power devices has increased
the requirement of solutions for WBAN implementation. In addition
to the need to reduce the devices dimensions and improve power
consumption, it is also important to work on developing flexible
antennas that may be integrated into clothes. The wearable antenna
plays an important role in a WBAN, presenting a wide variety of
applications. The antennas can be used in systems detecting body
motion during exercise activity, monitoring heart rate and blood
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MAP.2017.2686093
pressure, and used by emergency responders such as firefighters or
Date of publication: 24 April 2017 police officers [1], [2].
2.5
2.45
X: 203
Y: 2.4
2.4
2.3
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220
Figure 4. The textile antenna prototype: (a) front and
(b)back.
Curvature Angle ()
(a)
2.55
0
Resonance Frequency (GHz)
2.5 2
X: 193 4
2.45 Y: 2.495 6
S11 (dB)
8
X: 129
2.4 10
Y: 2.425
12
2.35
14 Simulation
16 Measurement
2.3
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 18
Curvature Angle () 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3
(b) Frequency (GHz)
Figure 3. The simulated curvature angle impact on antenna Figure 5. The simulated and measured S 11 at 0 bending
resonant frequency for: (a) case A and (b) case B. angle.
MEASUREMENT SETUP
To characterize the textile antenna performance, two types of
0
measurements were performed. First, the S 11 was measured
2
in-bench, using a vector network analyzer with the intent of
4 Flat
finding the actual resonant frequency of the antenna. Second, Arm-Case A
the radiation pattern was measured in an anechoic cham- 6
Wrist-Case A
S11 (dB)