TEXTILE DIPOLE ANTENNA FOR WEARABLE APPLICATION

The idea of wearable electronic system has triggered a vast research on the capability of implementing the system on daily garment. As a wearable system, the human body friction should be taken into account. Antenna is one of the main structure in wearable communication system. This paper presents a study on a textile dipole antenna with two different conducting materials. The conducting materials are Shieldit fabric and copper fabric while the substrate is denim. The denim has a dielectric constant of 1.67 with 0.85 mm thickness and loss tangent of 0.019. The antenna resonates at Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band which is at 2.45 GHz. Antenna performances are observed in terms of reflection coefficient, bandwidth, and radiation pattern. Three different investigations are analysed: antenna measurement with two different bending sizes, under wet conditions and on-body conditions. The bending and wetness effect of the textile antenna are also investigated. No significant changes to the antenna performance under the bending condition. The antenna cannot operate in wet condition at desired frequency. In addition, on-body measurement is done to investigate the antenna properties in wearable system. A suitable placement of the antenna on the human body has been discovered between the front and back of the body and the arm.