Novel broadband antenna for wearables

To research the capability of integrating cost effective and lightweight mobile communication systems with the human body, this paper presents two wearable antennas that have been designed to operate between 900MHz and 6GHz, modelled accordingly and constructed from a conductive sewing thread. The results for bowtie and novel bowtie wearable antenna are described. Each antenna has been tested; the frequency response and radiation pattern results are presented for both the standalone antennas and the antennas in the vicinity of the human body. Results show that low-cost, lightweight stitched antennas made from conductive thread can radiate at fixed frequencies both off and on body with reasonable characteristics.