Polyester Based Wearable Microstrip Patch Antenna

J.G.Joshi Shyam S. Pattnaik

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engg. Educational Television Centre
Government Polytechnic, Nashik National Inst. of Technical Teachers Training & Research
Nashik (M S), India Chandigarh, India
jgjoshiantenna@gmail.com profshyampattnaik@gmail.com

Abstract— In this paper, a wearable microstrip patch antenna substrate. Fig.2(a) and Fig.2(b) respectively depicts the
using inter-digital capacitor (IDC) and rectangular stub for photographs of radiating patch and ground plane of the
802.11 b WLAN band applications is presented. The antenna is fabricated wearable microstrip patch antenna. The geometrical
fabricated on an inexpensive polyester cloth substrate. The dimensions of rectangular stub are; length Lm = 30 mm and
antenna resonates at 2.45 GHz with the bandwidth and gain of 41 width Wm = 4 mm. This stub is connected to the IDC as shown
MHz and 5 dBi respectively. The electrical dimension of
in Fig.1. The geometrical dimensions of IDC are; number of
proposed wearable antenna is 0.213 λ × 0.246 λ. The antenna has
been fabricated, tested, and the measured results are presented in
finger pairs N = 6, finger width w = 2 mm, spacing between
the paper. The equivalent circuit analysis of this antenna is also the teeth’s is s = 1 mm and finger length; L = 15 mm. The
prepared, reported and reported in the paper. dimensions of polyester cloth substrate used to fabricate this
antenna are; thickness h = 3.14 mm, relative permittivity (εr)
Keywords—Inter-digital capacitor (IDC), polyester, WLAN, of 1.39 and the loss tangent tan δ = 0.01.
equivalent circuit Rectangular stub Ground plane
Inter-digital capacitor
I. INTRODUCTION
The handheld communication devices and body centric Polyester substrate
communication systems need high gain, high bandwidth, light
weight and compact antennas which should be an integral part w s
of the wearer clothing [1]-[4]. These devices and systems are
wearable computers, flexible mobile phones, personal digital
assistant (PDA) devices, public safety band systems, sports
activities, and medical applications. The synthetic or natural
materials are used as substrate to manufacture the textile based
wearable antennas for WLAN and public safety band h
Lm
applications. In spite of numerous advantages of microstrip
patch antennas, it is difficult to achieve a better tradeoff
between the gain, bandwidth, and size of antennas. In this
work, an inter-digital capacitor based microstrip patch antenna
is presented to overcome these limitations. The objective of
this paper is to design, fabricate and test the wearable y
microstrip patch antenna using IDC and rectangular stub on
polyester substrate for 802.11b WLAN applications. The L εr x
purpose to use IDC is its construction like interleaved fingers z
hence; it occupies less metal area than the conventional Wm Feed point
microstrip patch. This construction helps to- (a) reduce the Fig.1. Sketch and geometrical structure of wearable microstrip
adverse effects on antenna performance due to its bending patch antenna using inter-digital capacitor and rectangular stub.
according to wearer body movements. (b) minimize
absorption of electromagnetic waves (SAR) in the human
body because it occupies less metal area. The proposed
antenna has been fabricated, tested, and the measured results
are presented in this paper.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
Fig.1 depicts the sketch and geometrical structure of wearable
(a) (b)
microstrip patch antenna using IDC and rectangular stub. This
antenna is fabricated using copper tape and polyester cloth Fig. 2. Photographs of fabricated wearable microstrip patch antenna
(a) Radiating patch (b) Ground plane.

978-1-4799-3267-2/13/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE


The numbers of polyester cloth layers are stitched in vertical
and horizontal directions to fabricate the substrate of required
thickness. The antenna is coaxially fed using SMA connector
at x = -13 mm and y = 13 mm. Method of moment based IE3D
electromagnetic simulator is used to simulate this antenna. The
electrical dimension of antenna at resonance frequency
2.45GHz is 0.213 λ × 0.246 λ. The radiating patch comprising
IDC with rectangular stub and ground plane of the proposed
antenna are finely cut from self adhesive copper tape of
thickness 0.1 mm according to the designed dimensions and
shapes. The finely cut elements are tightly adhered on the
prepared polyester substrate.
III. RESULTS & DISCUSSION
Fig.3 depicts the simulated return loss (S11) characteristics of
proposed wearable antenna. The antenna resonates at 2.45
GHz with the bandwidth of 41 MHz. Bird site analyzer®
(Model No. SA-6000 EX, Frequency range 25 MHz to 6 GHz)
is used to test the fabricated antenna. Fig. 4 shows the
measured return loss (S11) characteristics of the fabricated
wearable antenna with an inset experimental set up to test the
antenna. The antenna resonates at 2.48 GHz also; a significant
matched condition is noticed (Fig.4) at second resonance
frequency 2.71 GHz which is not obtained in the simulated S11
characteristics. The matching is obtained at second frequency
is due to corrugations generated in the polyester substrate
during stitching process of substrate. This effect is separately
analyzed by the authors in their extended research work.
Fig. 3. Simulated return loss (S11) characteristics.
Fig.4. Measured return loss (S11) characteristics of the fabricated
wearable antenna.
Ls
Cidc
Lr
Cm Rm
Equivalent circuit details: Cidc : Capacitance of IDC, Lr: Inductance of a
rectangular stub, Rm : Resistance of rectangular stub, Ls: Inductance of a
small square microstrip, Cm: Capacitance of rectangular stub with respect
to ground plane.
Fig. 5. Equivalent circuit diagram.
(a) (b)
Fig. 6. Radiation patterns of wearable microstrip patch antenna on
polyester substrate (a) Elevation (b) Azimuth.
Fig.5 shows the equivalent circuit diagram with related details
of proposed wearable antenna. The inductance of rectangular
microstrip stub with the capacitance of IDC forms the LC
resonant circuit of antenna to obtain WLAN frequency band.
Fig. 6(a) and Fig. 6(b) respectively depict elevation and azimuth
radiation patterns of the antenna indicating the gain of 5 dBi.
IV. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a polyester cloth based microstrip patch
wearable antenna for WLAN applications. Important features of
this antenna are small size, inexpensive, light weight, simple
fabrication and easy integration within the clothing. This
antenna will find its applications in the clothing of military,
sportsmen and police personnel. The desired resonance
frequency can be obtained by varying design parameters of IDC.
REFERENCES
[1] P. S. Hall and Y. Hao, “Antennas and propagation for body centric
communications,” Proceedings of First European Conference on Antennas
and Propagation (EuCAP 2006), 2006 (Invited Paper).
[2] J. G. Joshi, Shyam S. Pattnaik, and S. Devi, “Geo-textile based
metamaterial loaded wearable microstrip patch antenna,” International
Journal of Microwave & Optical Technology, vol. 8, no.1, pp.25-33, 2013.
[3] J. G. Joshi and Shyam S. Pattnaik, “Polypropylene based metamaterial
integrated wearable microstrip patch antenna,” Proceedings of IEEE Indian
Antenna Week (IAW 2013), Aurangabad, India, June 3-7, 2013.
[4] J. G. Joshi, Shyam S. Pattnaik, and S. Devi, “Metamaterial embedded
wearable rectangular microstrip patch antenna,” International Journal of
Antennas and Propaga, Special issue on Wearable Antennas and Systems,
Hindwai Publication Corporation, vol. 2012, ID. 974315, pp.1-9, doi:
10:1155/2012/974315, 2012.