Repeatability and uncertainty evaluations of on-body textile antenna efficiency measurements in a Reverberation Chamber

For the validation of body worn antennas, the human body should be taken into account as the performance of such antennas is likely to differ from their free space equivalents. How best to determine the human body effects on antenna performance is a pertinent point in which many questions still remain. In this paper we consider the efficiency of some newly developed textile antennas for on-body applications and directly establish that a Reverberation Chamber (RC) is an ideal solution for these types of measurements in conjunction with human beings. It is shown that a RC can provide a very repeatable series of measurements in conjunction with the human (in the order of 3%), proving that inevitable (slight) human movements do not affect the measurements accuracy, and further, that the on-body efficiency can be assessed with a low uncertainty (~ 0.22 dB) if the correct procedure is followed. The work proves that the RC facility is beneficial to any institution who seeks this knowledge for their designs.