Enhancement of On-Body Propagation at 60 GHz Using Electro Textiles

It is demonstrated that an electro textile can improve the wave propagation at 60 GHz along and around the body. To this end, an analytical formulation is implemented to evaluate the electric field excited by an infinitesimal dipole over a flat skin model with and without an electro textile layer. To validate the analytical results, the propagation is characterized numerically and experimentally for two rectangular open-ended V-band waveguides placed over a skin-equivalent phantom. Path gain values for flat, cylindrical, and elliptical cylinder phantoms are provided. Results show that placing an electro textile over a skin-equivalent phantom allows increasing the path gain by 5-15 dB. In addition, it has a shielding effect by decreasing the power absorption in the body by more than 95%.