The performance of conducting elastomer antennas for body worn applications

Antenna efficiencies for dipole, bowtie and spiral antennas made from readily available conducting elastomer materials, as used for EMC gaskets, were measured and also calculated from computer simulations. These materials are well suited to body worn and textile antenna applications as they are elastic and can withstand repeated washing in detergent. Our results show that the antenna efficiency is only reduced by a factor of between 0.75 to 0.85 for antennas made of conducting elastomers with either silver coated aluminum or nickel coated graphite, when compared to antennas fabricated from annealed copper. The advantage of the graphite material is its low cost compared to the materials containing silver. Surprisingly, the performance of elastomer with silver coated copper filler was poorer. A new method for measuring the conductivity of conducting elastomer materials at RF and microwave frequencies was also developed.