Effect of different substrate materials on a wearable textile monopole antenna

In this paper the investigation of the effect using different substrate materials on a textile monopole antenna is discussed. This textile monopole antenna is designed to be used for Body-Centric Wireless Communications (BCWC) at 2.45 GHz. Three types of non-conductive materials were selected: felt, fleece and foam. The textile monopole was benchmarked against a conventional FR-4 monopole antenna. The results demonstrated a good agreement between simulated return loss of all three substrates used for textile monopole antenna and conventional monopole antenna. The felt-based textile monopole antenna offered higher return loss compared to other substrates and conventional monopole antenna. Moreover, the substrate materials gained bandwidths of up to 1000 MHz in free space where fleece fabric produced broader bandwidth compared to other substrates. The simulated gain characteristics for all three types of substrates agreed reasonably well with conventional monopole antenna.