Flexible sheet-shaped waveguide for body-centric wireless communications

There have been growing interests in body-centric wireless communications. As a new candidate to support on-body propagation, this paper proposes to wear a smart suit, a subsidiary waveguide which wireless devices couple to. Our proposal waveguide is called as a free access mat which limits the arrival domain of radio systems to the area around itself. Wireless devices couple to it and the electromagnetic wave transmits through it. Data and power transmission is therefore possible through it. This paper presents experimental study of free access mat using flexible conductive textile which provides with conformity to wearable devices. This paper shows that flexible free access mat is applicable to body-centric wireless communications.