Wearable textile antennas

Abstract

Owing to the rapid progress in fabrication technologies of conductive fibrous materials and the increasing demand for wireless communications in smart clothing systems, the potential application of wearable textile antennas in this field continues to increase. This article reviews a variety of wearable textile antennas in order to provide background information and application ideas for designing such antennas. The various materials used in the construction of wearable textile antennas, their fabrication methods, as well as the antenna types and their application fields are summarised. Owing to the high conductivity of metals, various metal composite yarns (MCYs) and fabrics have been used in the production of textile antennas. For inductively coupled near-field communication within smart clothing systems, woven or embroidered multiturn loop antennas are suggested. For far-field communication, a variety of broadband textile antennas were developed to counterbalance the detuning caused by the presence of a human body. Embroidered-folded dipole array antennas, metal-coated fabric patched bowtie and spiral antennas, a microstrip patch antenna array and a coplanar antenna made of metal-coated fabric patches and a ground plane, are the antennas that cover a broad spectrum and thus are capable of operating on the body.