An all-textile antenna with EBG structure for on-body communication

In this paper, an all-textile antenna with EBG structure for on-body communication is proposed. The proposed antenna consists of center-fed circular patch to generate TM01 mode wave and EBG structure around the patch to guide TM01 wave along the horizontal surface (θ = 90°). The EBG structure acts as an inductively reactive surface to support TM01 mode wave along the body surface. The proposed antenna is designed by using textile materials (conductive textile, conductive thread, and leather substrate) and has monopole-like radiation enhanced along the surface direction in 5.8 ISM GHz band. The proposed antenna has a radius of 50 mm (0.96 λ0 at 5.8 GHz) and a thickness of 3 mm (0.058 λ0 at 5.8 GHz). The antenna gain on the phantom surface (θ = 90°) is improved by 3.3 dB from -5.38 dBi without EBG ground to -2.08 dBi with EBG ground. The peak gain direction is increased from 30° to 75° and near broadside gain is suppressed about 9.6 dB (θ = 30°).