Title :
Textile UWB Antennas for Wireless Body Area Networks
Author :
Klemm, Maciej ; Troester, Gerhard
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Inf. Technol. & Electr. Eng., Swiss Fed. Inst. of Technol., Zurich
Abstract :
A new ultrawideband (UWB) textile antenna designed for UWB wireless body area network (WBAN) applications is presented. Unlike previous textile antennas, these antennas offer a direct integration into clothing due to a very small thickness (0.5 mm) and flexibility. We have realized two different designs of textile antennas: coplanar waveguide fed printed UWB disc monopole and UWB annular slot antenna. To our knowledge, these are the first textile UWB antennas reported in the open literature. Measured return loss and radiation pattern characteristics of textile UWB antennas agree well with simulations. Moreover, measured transfer functions show that these textile antennas possess excellent transient characteristics, when operating in free space as well as on the human body. They can operate in the entire UWB band approved by the Federal Communications Commission (3.1-10.6 GHz)
Keywords :
antenna feeds; antenna radiation patterns; coplanar waveguides; loop antennas; microstrip antennas; monopole antennas; personal area networks; slot antennas; transfer functions; ultra wideband antennas; 0.5 mm; 3.1 to 10.6 GHz; Federal Communications Commission; UWB disc monopole antenna; WBAN; annular slot antenna; coplanar waveguide fed printed antenna; radiation pattern characteristics; transfer function; ultrawideband textile antenna; wireless body area network; Antenna measurements; Antenna radiation patterns; Body sensor networks; Clothing; Coplanar waveguides; Loss measurement; Slot antennas; Textiles; Ultra wideband antennas; Ultra wideband technology; Body area networks; textile antennas; ultrawideband (UWB);
Journal_Title :
Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TAP.2006.883978
