Textile-to-rigid microstrip transition using permanent magnets

A novel transition between a rigid-substrate and a flexible-substrate microstrip for use in wearable devices is described. The contact force between the conductors of the two microstrips is supplied by a pair of rectangular magnets. A simulation and measurement study carried out on a test jig comprising a back-to-back pair of such transitions demonstrated an insertion loss of better than 0.5 dB/transition can be achieved in the range of 0-3 GHz.