A fully fabric wearable antenna for HiperLAN/2 applications

Electronics may soon be integrated into textiles in our near environment. These “Interactive Electronic Textiles” or “Smart Clothes” will benefit many wireless communication applications, leading to the development of body centric networks. Rapid progress in wireless communication promises to replace wired-communication networks in the near future in which antennas play a vital role. This paper deals with design, development and evaluation of a fully fabric wearable antenna suitable for HiperLAN/2 (5.8 GHz band) applications. This antenna yields promising results and demonstrate the use of textile materials as substrates and smart clothes as conducting layers for the design and development of wearable microstrip antennas.