Flexible textile based antennas

Abstract

The future generation of protective clothing will accommodate an entire sensor network to guard the health status of the professional during operation. Vital information can be of crucial importance to guarantee the physical safety of e.g. a fire fighter in full action. The off-body communication of the information captured by the sensors is wirelessly transmitted to a nearby base station through textile based antennas. This paper reports on the design methodology and testing of textile antennas based on aramid fabric and flexible foam material. The planar antennas operate in the license free 2.45 GHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio band. The rectangular ring topology proves to provide sufficient robustness. A flexible connection between the antenna and the system improves its unobtrusiveness. The antennas guarantee a bandwidth of over 100 MHz and provide a gain of 6 dBi. Furthermore, the authors report on the antenna behaviour in real life applications such as bending and coverage of the antenna by other textile layers.