International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)

ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 3 Issue 5, May - 2014

Wearable -Textile Patch Antenna using Jeans as

Substrate at 2.45 GHz

Sweety Purohit Falguni Raval

EC department EC department
CHARUSAT, Changa CHARUSAT, Changa
Gujrat, India Gujrat, India

Abstract—Utilization of wearable textile materials as antenna large if they are to be robust against perturbation by the body.
substrate has been speedy due to the recent miniaturization of However monopole and dipole has no ground plane so there
wireless devices. A wearable antenna is to be a part of the clothing its radiation pattern is effect to the body. So patch antenna is
used for wireless communication purposes, which include tracking preferable.
and navigation, mobile and wearable computing and public safety.
For user convenience there is an increasing need for integrating In general, textiles material has a very low dielectric
antennas on or in the clothing. The conventional antennas are not constant that reduces the surface wave losses and increases the
flexible and difficult for user to movements. There is a need of impedance bandwidth of the antenna. Textile material used
antennas made of flexible textile materials that can be part of user here is jeans; its dielectric constant is 1.6. Here we can make a
clothing defined as wearable antennas. In particular, the micro prototype of partial wearable antenna using self-adhesive
strip patch antennas are good candidates for body-worn copper tape which was tested using scalar network analyzer.
applications, as they mainly radiate perpendicularly to the planar
structure and also their ground plane efficiently shields the body II. DESIGN OF MICROSTRIP PATCH ANTENNA
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tissues.[1] This paper shows research on wearable patch antennas
designed and developed for various applications at 2.45 GHz
A. Basic of Patch Antenna
frequency . Here at 2.45 GHz frequency patch antenna is designed In its most fundamental and basic form, a Micro strip Patch
antenna consists of a radiating patch on one side of a dielectric
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and simulated using HFSS.

substrate which has a ground plane on the other side as shown
Keywords — jeans, self adhesive copper tape Wearable in Fig 1[2]. The patch is generally made of conducting
Patch antenna material such as copper silver, or gold and can take any
possible shape like square, rectangular, circular. The radiating
I. INTRODUCTION patch and the feed lines are usually photo etched on the
dielectric substrate.
One of the interesting researches in antennas for body-
centric communications is wearable, textile -based
antennas. Commonly, wearable antenna requires light weight,
low cost, almost maintenance-free and easy installation. There
are number of specialized occupation segments that can
use body centric communication systems, such as medical,
fire fighters, and military. Besides, wearable antennas also can
be applied for patient monitoring, astronauts, and athletes for
the purpose of monitoring
For integration into clothing, antennas are usually required
to be small, lightweight, and flexible. They should have
stability and exhibit safe to person health when placed close to
the body. There are several candidate antenna types suitable
for wearable antennas, which are PIFAs, micro strip antennas,
and planar monopoles. Micro strip antennas are usually
preferred among these options. Micro strip antennas are useful
Figure 1 Rectangular Patch antenna
for on-body wearable communication, because of their ease of
construction, their cost effectiveness. One of the main B. Design of Rectangular Patch Antenna
advantage of patch antenna as wearable application is that its
associated metallic ground plane that when used between the The main factor involved to design a rectangular patch.
body and the radiating elements can significantly reduce the  Decide the desire frequency
energy absorbed by the body. However, micro strip antennas
tend to have narrow bandwidth and may need to be relatively  Selection of substrate material and height

IJERTV3IS050548 www.ijert.org 2456

 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 3 Issue 5, May - 2014

 Design of patch dimension TABLE 1 DIMENSION OF PATCH ANTENNA

 Feeding method and its position Desire Parameter Calculated Value
Frequency of patch antenna 2.45 GHz
To design a rectangular patch antenna frequency is 2.45GHz
because it is license free and ISM band so it can use for Dielectric constant 1.6
various application. For wearable patch antenna substrate is Height of Patch antenna 3.5 mm
textile material, here textile material is jeans which has Width of Patch antenna 53.6974 mm
dielectric constant is 1.6. The height of substrate is 3.5mm Length of patch antenna 46.6 mm
because less than 3.5mm it not gives return loss at desire Width of micro stip line 13.1197 mm
level. Dimension of substrate 120mm X 120 mm
C. Calculation of Patch Width Length of inset feed 12.45 mm
The patch width (W) has a minor effect on the resonant
frequency (fr), and it is calculated using the following
According to above calculation following simulated result is
formula (1)
obtained.
Name X Y XY Plot 11 HFSSDesign1 ANSOFT

c 2 0.00 2.4500 -32.5772

m1 Curve Info

w= (1)[3] dB(S(1,1))

2fr (εr + 1)
Setup1 : Sw eep
patchy='46.6mm' sly='12.377mm' sly1='12.377mm' subh='3.5mm' suby='120mm'
-5.00

Where c is the speed of light in free space and εr is the

relative permittivity of the fabric material under test. [3] -10.00

D. Calculation of Effective dielectric constant (εreff) -15.00

dB(S(1,1))

The micro strip patch lies between air and the dielectric Return Loss = -32.5722dB
material, and thus, the EM wave sees an effective permittivity -20.00

(εreff) given by . (2).

-25.00 2.4500GHz
−1 z
𝜀𝑟 + 1 𝜀𝑟 − 1 12ℎ 2
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𝜀𝑟eff = + 1+ (2)[3] -30.00

2 2 𝑊 m1

-35.00
1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00
Where h is the thickness of the substrate. Freq [GHz]
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E. Calculation of actual Length of Patch Figure 2 Return loss of antenna

The patch length (L) determines the resonant frequency and it According to simulated result resonat frequency is 2.4 GHz
is a critical parameter in design because of the inherent with S11is- 30 db as shown in fig 2.
narrow bandwidth of the patch. The design value for L is
given by . (3)
𝑐
𝐿= − 2∆𝐿 (3)[3]
2𝑓𝑟 𝜀𝑟eff
Where εreff is the effective permittivity of the material under
test. [3]
F. Calculation of extension length ΔL
At both ends of the patch length, due to the effect of
fringing fields,the extention of length is given by
𝑤
𝜀𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑓 + 0.3 + 0.264
𝛥𝐿 = 0.412ℎ ℎ (4)[3]
𝜀𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑓 − 0.258 𝑤
+ 0.8
ℎ
G. The effective patch length Le
The effective patch length can be calculated
𝐿𝑒 = 𝐿 + 2∆𝐿 5 3

The feeding technique for wearable antenna is inset feeding

because it is easy and comfortable for person to wear the
Figure 3 3-D Radiation pattern of antenna
antenna and fabrication of this feeding is easy.
According to above equation and some optimization the The gain of simulated antenna is 7.26 dB as shown in fig
calculated dimension of antenna is given in table 1. 3. E plane and H plane radiation pattern is shown in fig 4
which is 2-D radiation pattern.

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 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 3 Issue 5, May - 2014

IV. FABRICATED RESULTS AND CRITICAL DESIGN ISSUES

Now after fabrication testing is done using scalar network

analyzer according to test setup as shown in fig 6. According
to tested result return loss is -30dB at 2.492GHz. The
fabricated output result is however similar with the simulated
results. There is minor difference between simulated and
fabricated result because of various reasons which are as
follow.

Figure 4 E and H plane radiation pattern

III. FABRICATION OF TEXTILE PATCH ANTENNA.

For fabrication of prototype textile antenna we have done
following steps
A. Measure the Height of Single layer.
For the desire thickness we have to measure single layer
thickness of substrate material. Measurement of single layer
jeans is done using thickness gauge. It gives the 0.7mm for
single layer.
B. Stack the Jeans for desire height
For the 3.5 mm thickness we have to stack the jeans according Figure 6 Measurement set- up of return loss
to substrate dimension 120 X 120mm stitch it at the edges.
Then remaining jeans was cut using scissor. According to
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calculated dimension self-adhesive copper tape which has non
conducting glue is cut using blade. Then using same material
ground plane was cut and stick on jeans substrate.
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C. SMA Connector
Then SMA connector is soldered using normal soldering
techniques. There are chances of burning the jeans material so
special care is taken during soldering.

Figure 7 Practical measured result

A. The height of dielectric substrate.

The dielectric substrate height for patch antenna is taken to be
3.5 mm for jeans material. With this value, we get the
simulation result. However when fabricated, the jeans material
(dielectric substrate) did not give the constant thickness. Being
a fabric material, it has some ups and downs in its surface and
hence is not smooth. When some pressure is applied then its
height is changed. For desire height the jeans is staked. Here 5
layers are used for desire thickness. All the cutting and sewing
are done manually at home so there is some air gap between
the layers and dimension is not as much perfect.
Figure 5 Fabricated wearable patch antenna
B. Dielectric constant of substrate material jeans
The dielectric constant of textile material should be measured
with different techniques like resonance method and non
resonance method with VNA and split post ring resonator, we
considered material has dielectric constant is 1.6 [5].When

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 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 3 Issue 5, May - 2014

fabricating a micro strip patch antenna with solid substrate, the units which limits the use of antenna diversity. On the other
copper is plated on the substrate and the unwanted material is hand antenna diversity can be utilized on a large scale of a
etched out. When fabricating a textile antenna it is required to body worn wireless system [7] .Wearable textile antennas has
attach the radiating patch and ground plane to the dielectric also attracted consumer electronics industry because it fulfills
substrate. This is done by self adhesive copper tape which has the increasing demands from the rapidly evolving wireless
nonconductive glue in between the dielectric substrate and world. Wearable antenna desirable features common to all
radiating patch. When the glue is added in the upper and lower applications require light weight, functional, robust,
layer of the substrate, the dielectric constant of the substrate is unobtrusive, and inexpensive, zero maintenance and no setup
changed and due to this resonance frequency of antenna requirements. The important factors that can influence the
changes because the square root of dielectric constant of the wearable antenna performance are:
substrate is inversely proportional to the frequency. Thus
resonance at lower frequency occurred during measurement A. Human body interaction with the antenna.
which can be seen in S11 plot. When the glue is applied to the The human body is an irregularly shaped medium with
surface of dielectric, the contact between the dielectric frequency dependent permittivity and conductivity [7].The
substrate and the radiating patch becomes non homogeneous. distribution of the electromagnetic field inside the body and
This affects the antenna performance. Between the different the scattered field depends largely on the body physiological
layers of jeans substrate there is some air gap and because of parameters, geometry, frequency and polarization of the
this dielectric constant of air should be changed which incident field. Due to high permittivity of body tissues [6] the
influence the resonant frequency of antenna. antenna resonant frequency will change and detune to a lower
one. [7] Another important parameter is the antenna Gain that
C. Rough Edges of substrate material. directly affects the power transmitted in a maximum radiation
During fabrication, when the textile material is cut to give the direction. Due to human body some part of radiating power of
shape according to the dimensions obtained, a knife and an antenna will be absorbed by it and it will result in lower
scissor was used. Use of this equipment’s introduced two gain, variations in dimensions.[7] Due to stretching and
types of errors. When cutting, due to parallax error, the sides compression which are typical for fabric, the antenna structure
and edges of the radiating element were not straightly cut. can easily deform and affect its performance characteristics.
Because of this, antenna matching is poor. Also when cutting As a result it will be difficult to mass produce an antenna with
the edges of the conductive textile material, some fiber thread the same radiation characteristics even using same materials.
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comes out. These threads are on the edges from which the
antenna radiates. This affects the radiation of antenna and B. Water Absorption.
hence the range of antenna decreased when compared with Fabric antennas can easily absorb water and moisture and can
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calculated results. The above mentioned problems can be consequently change the resonant frequency and impedance
solved by taking careful attention and the right tools for the bandwidth of an antenna. Even sweating of wearable person
fabrication. can affect the resonant frequency of antenna.
The fabrication of textile antenna is more complicated than C. SAR Calculation
that of printed antenna. Considering these facts, we were
supposed to fabricate the antenna in an industry with Wearable antenna is used near the body or for on body
appropriate tools and materials, but due to lack of communication for this SAR calculation is needed. The two
commercialization of textile antenna, we had to do it our self. most commonly used SAR limit are those of IEEE1.6W/kg
However this gave us an opportunity to learn more about for any 1g of tissue, and ICNIRP (International Commission
fabrication process and to deal with the problems that arise on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection [6]) 2W/kg for any 10g
during fabrication process. of tissue. The specific absorption rate (SAR) is an important
parameter to be measured for any wearable antenna design.
This parameter shows the rate of energy absorption by the
V. DESIRABLE FEATURES human body tissue when exposed to fields radiated by the
Wearable antennas have drawn more and more attention in antenna. The SAR is potentially important to any wearable
antenna as they are placed in very close proximity to the body.
recent years due to the fact that they can be seamlessly
There is no specific legislation which considers wearable
integrated into clothing which is a desired feature for hands
devices; however minimization of SAR is a sensible design
free applications and military applications requiring low
goal.
visibility. More importantly wearable antennas can use all the
space on clothing that can be utilized to improve quality of CONCLUSION
signal in wireless communications. Secondly multi path
fading is one of the most severe problems in wireless The micro strip antenna is a suitable candidate for wearable
communication since the signal strength drops as the mobile applications, as it can be built using fabric substrate
terminal moves over a distance comparable to wavelength.[7] materials. Textile material has low dielectric constant
Antenna diversity is a very effective way to combat multipath normally it is 1 to 2. So it can reduce the surface wave losses
fading. However antenna diversity requires at least half a and improve the antenna bandwidth. Here textile antenna
wavelength separation between each antenna in the diversity structures have been tested in order to get preliminary results
system. This is not possible on small form factor hand held on the performance of antennas. The antennas presented

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 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 3 Issue 5, May - 2014

revert versatile, and it is easy to fabricate. According to material different types of antenna can be fabricated. .
simulated results return loss is -32.57 dB at 2.45 GHz and Wearable antenna can be washable if textile material is used
gain is 7.2. Now according to fabrication s11 is -30dB at as substrate and E- textile material is used as ground and
2.4945GHz radiating element then it can be called as fully textile antenna
FUTURE WORK it can be done as future work.

The micro strip antenna is a better candidate for wearable ACKNOWLEDGMENT

applications, as it can be built using textile substrate materials. Special thanks goes to Dr. S Sankaralingam, a senior member
Textile material has low dielectric constant (1 to 2) so it can of, IEEE and full time Research Scholar of Micro strip Patch
reduce the surface wave losses and improve bandwidth of antenna Laboratory, at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
antenna. When moving or doing some physical work, the His knowledge and willingness to help have to facilitate not
antenna may bend. If it is bent, the physical parameter of only my research, but every aspect of my paper work. I
antenna may change and if the physical parameter changes, learned from him the precise attitude to the research and other
the antenna radiation parameter may also change. The antenna works and benefited from his wide knowledge and creative
designed and manufactured in this paper is big in size. The thoughts.
smaller the textile antenna the less it bends. There is various
miniaturization technique for antenna made from copper. The REFERENCES
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Interscience: Hoboken, NJ,USA, 2005N. H. M. Rais1, P. J. Soh1,
avoided then search needs to be carried out on water proof F.Malek1, S. Ahmad1, N.B.M. Hashim1, P.S Hall2 “A review of
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types of textile material are available in market using these

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