Applying textile materials for the design of antennas for wireless body area networks

Author

Tronquo, Anneleen ; Rogier, Hendrik ; Hertleer, Carla ; Van Langenhove, Lieva

Author_Institution

Dept. of Inf. Technol., Ghent Univ., Ghent

fYear

2006

fDate

6-10 Nov. 2006

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

5

Abstract

The design and manufacturing of several new textile-based rectangular-ring antennas for body area networks operating in the ISM-band (2.4 GHz-2.4835 GHz) is described. Fleece fabric is applied as antenna substrate, whereas the conducting antenna plane and ground plane are constructed based on a commercially available electrotextile called Flectron. We compare the characteristics of two prototypes that were assembled using different glueing techniques. The influence of bending on the characteristics is investigated. The proposed antennas are the first circularly polarised antennas that cover a bandwidth of more than 190 MHz, using a substrate material with a thickness less than 3 mm. The antennas provide sufficient antenna gain for use in practical wireless links. They allow direct integration into garments.

Keywords

microstrip antennas; personal area networks; textiles; antenna design; bending; circularly polarised antennas; electrotextile; frequency 2.4 GHz to 2.4835 GHz; wireless body area networks; Assembly; Bandwidth; Body area networks; Body sensor networks; Conducting materials; Fabrics; Manufacturing; Polarization; Prototypes; Textiles; Wearable Textile Systems; elektrotextiles; microstrip patch antenna;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Antennas and Propagation, 2006. EuCAP 2006. First European Conference on

Conference_Location

Nice

Print_ISBN

978-92-9092-937-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/EUCAP.2006.4584573

Filename

4584573