2732 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 58, NO.
8, AUGUST 2010
Communications
E-Textile Conductors and Polymer Composites for
Conformal Lightweight Antennas
Yakup Bayram, Yijun Zhou, Bong Sup Shim, Shimei Xu,
Jian Zhu, Nick A. Kotov, and John L. Volakis
AbstractWe present a conformal and lightweight antenna technology
based on E-textile conductors and polymer-ceramic composites. Unique ad-
vantages of the proposed technology are its structural integrity, light weight
and conformity to the platform. E-textile conductors are fabricated with
single wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) and Ag coated textiles. They demon-
strate good structural integrity with polymer composites due to their me-
chanical compatibility. Similarly, polymer composites demonstrate supe-
rior RF performance with permittivity ranging from 3 to 13. Fabrication
process for E-textile conductors and integration process with polymer com-
posites is described in detail. We also demonstrated merit of the proposed
technology with a simple patch antenna whose radiation performance is
measured when it was flat and conformed onto a cylindrical surface. We
compared its performance with that of an ideal patch. Experiments sug-
gested that the sample patch antenna based on the proposed technique
achieved 6 dB gain, which is 2 dB below a patch which has the same di-
mensions and made of ideal lossless materials. When it is conformed onto
a cylindrical surface, we achieved 2.5 dB less gain than that of antenna re-
alized with a PEC surface. This clearly validates the merit of the proposed
conformal antenna technique based on non-traditional materials.
Index TermsCarbon nanotube, conformal antennas, E-textile an-
tennas, lightweight antennas, polymer composite.
I. INTRODUCTION
Conformal, lightweight RF materials are critical to structurally inte-
grated antennas for next generation unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
and small ground vehicles. Primary interest is to develop smaller an-
tennas that retain their wavelength performance despite their smaller
electrical size. This implies that they must take advantage of structures/
airframe and volume must therefore be fully integrated with the plat-
form. Structural integrity with the airframe and platform requires new
non-traditional materials that are also low loss and suitable for RF func-
tionality. New material properties such as conformity, lightweight and
strong shear and tensile stress ratings are critical to the structural inte-
gration as well. Polymers and polymer-ceramic composites are shown
to be very flexible and low loss, thus, well suited for load bearing RF
applications (see [1] and [2]). Their RF performance is very good with
Manuscript received August 28, 2009; revised February 06, 2010; accepted
February 12, 2010. Date of publication May 18, 2010; date of current version
August 05, 2010. This work was supported in part by the U.S. Air Force Office
of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under Grant FA9550-07-1-0462.
Y. Bayram and J. L. Volakis are with the ElectroScience Laboratory, The
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43212 USA (e-mail: Bayram.2@osu.edu;
Volakis.1@osu.edu).
Y. Zhou was with the ElectroScience Laboratory, The Ohio State University,
Columbus, OH 43212 USA. He is now with Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA 95014
USA.
B-S. Shim, S. Xu, J. Zhu, and N. A. Kotov are with the Department of Elec-
trical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
MI 48109 USA (e-mail: kotov@umich.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are avail-
able online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2010.2050439
0018-926X/$26.00 2010 IEEE
Fig. 1. Very flexible E-textile antenna printed on polymer composite.
their permittivity ranging from 3 to over 13 with low loss tangent (less
than 0.02 at several GHz frequencies). Such composites can also be
mixed with magnetic powders to achieve higher permeability which is
critical to antenna miniaturization [3]. Thus, effective antenna minia-
turization can be achieved by proportionally increasing substrate per-
mittivity and permeability. However, the printing of the antenna geom-
etry on polymer composites is a challenge for load bearing antennas
intended for UAVs. Metals such as copper and gold are typically used
as high conductive elements for their low loss and large availability.
Even though such metals exhibit superior conductivity, their lack of
mechanical and structural flexibility hinders their ability to effectively
conform to the surfaces. They inherently do not possess mechanical
compatibility with polymer composites to strongly adhere to the sur-
face under the load/stress. Strong adhesion between the conductor and
the substrate is vital to the structural integration and strong RF perfor-
mance without compromising the antennas overall mechanical/struc-
tural performance. In this communication, we propose non-traditional
materials such as polymer-ceramic composites and carbon nanotube
coated E-textile for novel conformal and lightweight antennas. Such a
unique combination provides us with a superb mechanical flexibility
and strong, structural compatibility and integration with the UAV air-
frame and smart skin (see Fig. 1).
Several E-textile technologies for antenna applications have already
been shown in [4][6]. These technologies are based on metal coating
of textile yarns for improved conductivity. In this communication, we
propose E-textile fabrics coated with carbon nanotubes and sputtered
with gold/silver particles for improved conductivity. Carbon nanotubes
are of special interest due to their superior conductivity when aligned
properly and strong mechanical characteristics. They have been inves-
tigated by other researchers for their RF performance (see [7], [8] and
[9]) and found that they exhibit low efficiency when used as a stand-
alone dipole antenna due to their large input impedance. However,
SWNT coated textiles are very promising candidates for conformal and
lightweight antennas because they are not only flexible and structurally
very adhesive to the polymer-ceramic composites, but they also exhibit
strong conductivity on a textile grid. This allows for planar printed an-
tennas based on SWNT coated E-textiles.
In the subsequent paragraphs, we start with describing the E-textile
conductors. This is followed by polymer-ceramic composites. We
subsequently proceed to describe the E-textile printing technique on
polymer-ceramic composite. In the final section, we discuss perfor-
mance of a sample patch antenna based on the proposed technology and
compare its performance to that of an ideal patch made of lossless mate-
rials. This is followed by an additional measurement to characterize per-
formance of an E-textile antenna conformed onto a cylindrical surface.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 58, NO. 8, AUGUST 2010 2733

Fig. 2. (i) E-textile structure comprised of a fabric and coated CNTs. (ii) Pho-
tograph image of (A) the original cotton textile, (B) 1 layer of SWNT dye, and
(C) 10 layers of SWNT dye on cotton textiles.

II. E-TEXTILE CONDUCTIVE SHEET

E-textile is fabricated by simple dyeing technique (see [11] and [12]).
In other words, a textile was coated with SWNTs and Au particles for
improved conductivity (see Fig. 2). We first dispersed single-walled
carbon nanotubes (SWNTs; HiPCo SWNTs from Carbon Nanotech-
nologies Inc.) in diluted nafion-ethanol (see [10]). A commodity cotton
textile was dipped 10 seconds in the prepared SWNT dye dispersion
and dried for 1 hour at 60 C. This dying process was repeated 10 times
to increase mean electrical conductivity of the E-textile and reduce its
resistance (see Fig. 3(i) for resistance versus SWNT dipping) To fur-
ther reduce the resistance of E-textile, Au layers were sputtered for 200
seconds, which obviously improved the conductivity but slightly com-
promised flexible nature of the E-textile. Therefore, we added 2 more
layers of SWNT dyes. After adding 4 layers of these Au/SWNT sand-
wich, the E-textile loss reached to a resistance of 10
[see Fig. 3(ii)]
for an E-textile patch of size 4 cm 2 4 cm [see Fig. 3(i) A-1]. We next
treated the sample in a hot press overnight for 24 hours at 100 C to
achieve a strong adhesion of SWNT and Au into the cotton textiles
so that the sample still preserves its low loss nature even after severe
bending. We later tried sputtering Ag particles to optimize the perfor-
mance of the E-textile by instead of Au for higher conductivity and
better adhesion. After dipping the sample 10 times in SWNT, we used
2 layers of SWNT and Ag sputtering. Overall resistance reduced to Fig. 3. Resistances of SWNTMetal antenna patches. (i) Resistance changes
1.1
compared to 10
resistance with Au sputtering [see Fig. 3(iii)]. of e-cotton fabrics by SWNT dippings. (A-1) Dimensions of antenna shape
As a final step, we applied hot press for further adhesion. The resistance SWNT e-fabric. (ii) only front side of 10 layered SWNT dyed e-fabrics. Re-
of the final E-textile varies between 1.1
to 2.0
depending on the sistance rises after bending the fabrics. Hot press processing could regenerate
the initial resistances after bending as well as prevent resistance increases by
bending. Ag sputtering has led to lower resistance than Au sputtering
bending the fabrics. (iii) Combination of sputter Ag coating of 10 layered SWNT
and this is likely due to better wetting of SWNT by Ag as compared dyed e-fabrics with optimized hot press processing.
to Au and better spreading of evaporated Ag; thus, leading to stronger
adhesion with SWNTs and ultimately higher conductivity.
ramic powder with Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), dielectric permit-
III. POLYMER-CERAMIC MIX FOR CONFORMAL AND
tivity ranging from 3 to 13 with less than loss tangent of 0.01 can
LIGHTWEIGHT ANTENNAS be achieved (see Fig. 4). We preferred PDMS as the polymer matrix
Polymer-ceramic composites are novel highly flexible, lightweight over many other available because of its low cost and low-temperature
materials for RF applications. With a proportional mixture of ST ce- handling. Several different ceramic powders including barium titanate
2734 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 58, NO. 8, AUGUST 2010

Fig. 4. Dielectric permittivity and loss tangent of PDMS-ceramic composites

for various volume mix.

Fig. 5. E-textile antenna fabrication process: (i) E-textile preparation via the
aforementioned process. (ii) E-textile cut based on planar antenna dimensions.
(iii) E-textile mix with polymer composite. (iv) Final form of the antenna after
several hours of curing.
Fig. 6. (i) E-textile patch antenna platform. (ii) E-textile antenna dimensions.
(iii) Return loss performance of the E-textile patch antenna versus ideal patch.
(iv) Gain of the E-textile patch antenna versus ideal patch antenna made out of
(BaTiO3: BT), strontium titanate (SrTiO3: ST), Mg-Ca-Ti (MCT) and
lossless materials.
Bi-Ba-Nd-Titanate (BBNT). For our application, we chose SrTiO3 due
to its high dielectric constant and low loss. Dielectric permittivity and
loss tangent of polymer-ceramic composite for various ceramic mixing
IV. E-TEXTILE ANTENNA FABRICATION PROCESS
ratios is shown in Fig. 4. More detailed information in regards to mix-
ture and fabrication process is given in [2]. Further information on the E-textile is embedded on a polymer composite to fabricate planar
RF performance of polymer-ceramic composites can also be found in conformal lightweight antennas. The process is a simple mix of
[1] and [2]. polymer-ceramic composite with E-textile. Referring to the Fig. 5
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 58, NO. 8, AUGUST 2010
Fig. 7. Photograph of the cylindrically mounted E-textile patch antennas.
(a) E-plane bending, (b) H-plane bending.
resistance. The antenna was mounted on
displaying the process of printing a planar E-textile antenna on a
polymer-ceramic composite, we first patterned the textile according to
the planar antenna geometry specifications. We subsequently mixed
the polymer-ceramic composite over the E-textile fabric and waited 12
hours for curing. Our tests showed that the conductive textile adheres
strongly to the polymer-ceramic composite, thus, implying strong
mechanical and chemical compatibility. The final configuration was
very flexible patch as shown in Fig. 5. The E-textile still preserved
its conductivity while bent, implying that press process has provided
strong connectivity among the SWNTs and Au/Ag particles sputtered
on the textile. It is also important to note that the fabrication process
described above can be extended to commercial scale and be achieved
at substantially low cost. Conductive textile can be cut according to
any planar antenna specifications and printed on the polymer-ceramic
resistance led
composite at the room temperature.
V. RF PERFORMANCE OF E-TEXTILE POLYMER
COMPOSITE ANTENNAS
To demonstrate the performance of the proposed E-textile antenna,
we fabricated a sample patch antenna operating at 2 GHz. The antenna
dimensions are 50 mm 2 50 mm on a polymer substrate of 300 mil
(7.62 mm) thickness and permittivity of 4 as displayed in Fig. 6(ii).
E-textile patch with 35 mm 2 35 mm dimensions was embedded on a
polymer substrate using the previously described fabrication technique.
2735
Fig. 8. Return loss and antenna gain for a E-textile patch bend in E-plane.
(a) Return loss (E-plane), (b) antenna gain (E-plane).
The resulting textile had 2
a ground plane to carry out measurements in an anechoic chamber. To
compare performance of the sample antenna to that of an ideal patch,
we also modeled a PEC patch with lossless substrate of 4.0 permittivity
in HFSS of Ansoft.
Referring to the Fig. 6(iii) and (iv) displaying return loss and gain
of the sample and the ideal patch, respectively, we note that the pro-
posed E-textile technology has RF performance of a traditional patch
antenna considering that E-textile sample has 6 dB of gain at 2 GHz,
2 dB less than that of an ideal patch. The sample patch has a slightly
wider bandwidth than that of ideal patch and this is likely due to the
loss with the E-textile conductor. A large gain of 6 dB clearly demon-
strates comparable performance of the proposed technology to that of
a patch made out of traditional materials. It is also important to note
that resistance of the E-textile patch plays a critical role in the gain of
the antenna as expected. The E-textile patch with 10
to 0 dB antenna gain which is 6 dB less gain when Ag is used instead
of Au sputtering. This also demonstrates how critical the choice of Ag
over Au sputtering is.
VI. CONFORMAL E-TEXTILE PATCH ANTENNAS
Next, we looked into the performance of the conformal E-textile
patch when mounted on a cylindrical surface [13]. Referring to the
Fig. 7, where we attached an E-textile-polymer patch on a metal
cylindrical surface (80 mm in diameter and 160 mm in length) both in
E-plane and H-plane. E-textile patch was 30 mm 2 30 mm (conductive
2736 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 58, NO. 8, AUGUST 2010

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implies that the current flows in the circumferential direction.
We next measured the return loss and gain of the conformal E-textile
polymer patches on this platform at an anechoic chamber. Referring to
the Figs. 8 and 9 where return loss and gain of the proposed E-textile
patch antenna in both E-plane and H-plane are presented, we find that
the E-textile patch has a broader bandwidth in both cases compared
to a PEC patch on the same surface. Such a larger bandwidth is due
to the conductive losses on the E-textile patch. Despite the fact that
E-textile is stretched further, thus higher resistance; proposed E-textile
patch suffers on average 2.5 dB gain less than PEC attached on the
same cylindrical surface.

VII. CONCLUSION
We proposed an E-textile antenna technology based on Carbon
Nanotube coated textile and polymer-ceramic composited for con-
formal, lightweight antenna applications. We described the fabrication
process for E-textile conductors and printing on polymer composites.
We showed that proposed technology is readily scalable to mass
production and easily repeatable. We also found out that choice of
metal sputtering (Ag versus Au) is also critical to achieving high con-
ductivity. We also demonstrated the RF performance of the proposed
technology with a sample patch antenna and achieved a gain of 6
dB, which is less than 2 dB gain for an ideal antenna with the same
dimensions and lossless materials.