A Multi Band Textile Based Wearable Antenna

Project Title

A Multi Band Textile Based Wearable Antenna

Project Area of Specialization Wearables and ImplantableProject Summary

This project introduces a textile based wearable antenna. Textile based antennas include fabric as a substrate having many different wireless applications. A wearable system can be implemented using textile-based substrates due to its various properties including flexibility, camouflage hiding, prone to radiations and low profile. The implemented antenna will operate on two different bands that will make it suitable for various applications used in medical, security and on-body applications.

The work done will be able to make flexible and textile antennas that have taken a lot of attention recently due to their application in wearable systems. Wearable antennas need to be integrated within everyday clothing, be low profile, and be hidden as much as possible. A micro-strip antenna with a textile material as a substrate is flexible, low profile, lightweight and small size, therefore this type of antenna is more suitable for design and fabricates to be worn or carried on one’s body. This gives us new ideas to be explored for body area networks (BAN) and their implementations. It also features a multiband design that can be used for various applications as of those bands.

Project Objectives

The main goal of this application is to work with micro-strip antennas based on textile substrates as to achieve on-body radio communication as it is flexible and comfortable to be integrated into clothing. Moreover, textile antennas offer a low cost and ease of manufacture, which makes it an attractive option to be used in wireless communication applications.

Project Implementation Method

The design is firstly simulated on HFSS and afterwards it is implemented. We started off with a clear antenna top and a substrate of height 2-3mm but after finding out that the most preferred height for all locally available jeans is less than 1.2mm we had to change the specs which caused us to completely change the overall design of our antenna. Now we were dealing with a hurdle of integrating the coplanar waveguide with this design, so for that we took some changes in the top of the antenna and slots of multiple lengths were brought out to make the most accurate band results. So firstly we were able to make a single band at about 3.9GHz and that had a very good value of S11.  The bands of the design are at about 2.2 GHz, 5.9 GHz and 6.8 GHz. Return loss is specified to be very efficient for these bands.

The design has a substrate of jeans that is at about 1.6 as for permittivity and for the height we have it to be 0.9mm as it is the most suitable height for our antenna. The antenna now has triple bands where as with some amendments we can achieve single and dual bands. All the results are having positive gain and greater return loss

Benefits of the Project

• Applications of textile material to be used as substrate
• Flexibility of structure can make it useful for various applications
• Skills in HFSS Patch Antenna Designing and Simulation
• Absolute miniature structure is easy to camouflage
• Getting antenna fabrication skills
• Medical based applications as remote ECG and heart rate monitoring
• Can be integrated with fabric for BAN applications
• Easily integratable with military uniform bringing a camoflauge

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Antenna works on triple bands that makes it very easy to be flexible. Bands are 2.2 GHz, 5.8GHz and 6.9GHz

Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemType of Industry Telecommunication Technologies Wearables and ImplantablesSustainable Development Goals Affordable and Clean EnergyRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	21997
Antenna structures	Equipment	5	600	3000
Tranmitter / reception set	Equipment	2	8000	16000
LCD Screen for Output of Reciever	Equipment	1	2997	2997