Textile Antennas

Contact Person: Ivo Locher
Project Start: Spring 2003
Project End: Spring 2005

Objectives

Small and unobtrusive antennas continuously gain in importance in the today’s world of cellular phones and wireless network. Range of coverage, directionality and efficiency need to be adjusted and optimized considering application whereby limitations are given due to physics. A new field in this development are textile antennas. Integration of antennas in textiles introduces a bunch of additional design constraints. Compared with conventional antennas, textile antennas possess the following properties:

• a flat, planar structure such that it can be comfortably worn
• almost arbitrary large area coverage
• a drapable textile substrate 
• a substrate with inhomogeneous physical parameters 
• irregular ground plane

Status to date

Currently, we investigate textile antennas, which are suitable for a textile body network (T-Bone). Therefore, a wide radiation angle of the antenna is a crucial property for a reliable interconnection among textiles.

As sample application, we designed a textile Bluetooth patch antenna. After rigorous simulation and development of manufacturing methods, we extensively measured the antenna's properties in the anechoic chamber.

Next steps include investigation of antenna properties depending on body proximity and wearing stresses.

Publications

• Design and Characterization of Purely Textile Patch Antennas, I. Locher, M. Klemm, T. Kirstein and G. Tröster, IEEE Transactions on Advanced Packaging, Vol. 29, No. 4, Nov. 2006, pp. 777-788. pdf
• A Novel Circularly Polarized Textile Antenna for Wearable Applications, M. Klemm, I. Locher and G. Tröster, Proc. of 7th European Microwave Week, Amsterdam, Nederlands, pp. 137-140, Oct. 11-14, 2004.
• Textile Antenna, I. Locher, M. Chicherio, T. Kirstein and G. Tröster, ISWC 2003, Poster, White Plains, Oct. 21-23, 2003.