Miniaturization and Electromagnetic Reliability of Wearable Textile Antennas

Abstract

The wearable textile antenna plays a decisive role in the currently increasingly wireless communication network area. To realize the miniaturization and electromagnetic reliability, a slotted full-textile microstrip antenna was designed and fabricated using the screen printing method. The measured return loss and radiation pattern were tested and compared with the simulated results. Additionally, the adhesion between the silver paste coating as the radiation element and the textile substrate was detected using sticking tape as well as observation by the microscope. To develop the designed antenna in the on-body application, the artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) was designed, optimized and fabricated. The antenna performance results showed that the existence of the AMC had a significant effect in reducing the body coupling and antenna backward radiation.