Original article

Textile Research Journal

2018, Vol. 88(19) 2182–2189

Effects of weaving structures ! The Author(s) 2017

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and parameters on the radiation DOI: 10.1177/0040517517716908
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properties of three-dimensional
fabric integrated microstrip antennas

Ye Kuang, Lan Yao, He Luan, Shenghai Yu, Ruiyun Zhang

and Yiping Qiu

Abstract
In smart textile systems, the wireless communication between the wearer and the wider environment plays an important
role, especially in medical applications. This can be achieved by integrating an antenna in textile materials. The low-profile
microstrip antenna is a desirable choice for textile antennas and integrating this type of antenna into the three-
dimensional woven fabric achieves the most integrated textile antenna structure up to now. Different from traditional
antenna structures, the three-dimensional woven fabric integrated microstrip antenna has the radiation patch and ground
plane totally woven with the yarns, where the radiation properties would strongly depend on the weaving structures and
parameters. In this paper, a 1.9 GHz single patch microstrip antenna was designed and six types of antennas with different
combinations of woven patches and ground planes were compared. The measured results showed that the three-
dimensional woven antenna had adequate performance. In addition, the three-dimensional woven antenna with warp
yarns parallel to the feeding direction exhibited a better return loss and radiation pattern than the antenna with weft yarn
parallel to the feeding direction, due to the longer current path for the latter antenna based on simulated current
distribution analysis. Furthermore, the effects of conductive yarn parameters on the antenna properties were discussed
and yarn structures were suggested to obtain relatively ideal antenna performances.

Keywords
smart textiles, textile antennas, three-dimensional woven fabric, simulation, radiation properties

In the real smart textiles system, electronics are directly
integrated into the textile clothes to fully achieve smart
capabilities, including sensing, data processing, actuat-
ing, storage and communication, without disturbing the
wearabilities of the clothes.1–5 To enhance the wireless
communication performance in the system, the idea
of wearing textile antennas on the body, fully utilizing
the human body surface, has been proposed and
extended.6–10 Among the antennas types, the microstrip
antenna has the advantage of small size and low profile,
and is easy to make conformal with textile materials.11,12
In the literature, textile antennas have been made by
traditional adhesion methods13,14; however, this has
always resulted in weak binding between the conductive
patch and textile substrate, therefore deteriorating the
electromagnetic performance, stability and durability
of the textile antennas. The idea of the three-
dimensional woven fabric integrated microstrip
antenna was proposed by Lan and Yiping15 and, up
to now, is the most integrated antenna structure.
In this structure, by taking advantage of the three-dimen-
sional woven fabric structure, the radiation patch and
ground plane can be bounded with the substrate firmly.
Furthermore, the three-dimensional woven fabric has Z
yarns through the thickness, which provides the fabric
College of Textiles, Donghua University, China
Corresponding author:
Lan Yao, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
Email: yaolan@dhu.edu.cn
Kuang et al.
with high-impact resistance; therefore, the fabric can be
adopted for use in body armor or combat vests.
Since the significant difference between the three-
dimensional woven antenna and the traditional
microstrip antenna lies in the weaving structures of
the conductive patch and the ground plane, the weaving
structures and parameters on the antenna performance
need to be discussed in depth. In this paper, a 1.9 GHz
single patch microstrip antenna woven by the three-
dimensional weaving method was designed and fabri-
cated. The factors, including yarn thickness and feeding
directions, were focused to detect their influences.
For comparison, six types of antennas with different
structural patches and ground planes combination
were designed, fabricated and compared on the antenna
performance at the same time.
Experimental details
Antenna design
The resonant frequency of the microstrip antenna
designed in the study was 1.9 GHz in the personal
Figure 1. Schematic configuration of the proposed microstrip antenna: plain view (left) and side view (right).
Figure 2. Schematic configuration of the antenna integrated into the three-dimensional woven fabric.
2183
communication service band. Therefore, the antenna
had the size of a 54.2 mm  54.2 mm square radiation
patch on the 160 mm  160 mm  1.7 mm aramid sub-
strate, whose dielectric constant and loss tangent were
1.96 and 0.042 respectively. The antenna was fed by a
coaxial probe. The feeding direction of the antenna was
set along the x-axis and the feeding point was 15.6 cm
off center (see Figure 1).
The schematic configuration of the antenna inte-
grated into three-dimensional woven fabric is shown
in Figure 2. The three-dimensional woven fabric has a
net-shaped structure, including three settings of yarns,
which are warp, weft and Z yarns. The warp and weft
yarns are orthogonally set in each layer and there is
no interlacing existing between the two groups of
yarns; at the same time, they are bounded tightly by
the Z yarns along the thickness direction. To form the
microstrip antenna, the patch and ground plane in
the antenna were replaced by the conductive yarns in
the upper and bottom layers of the three-dimensional
woven structure.
Since the microstrip antenna has three parts, namely
the radiation patch, the substrate and the ground plane,
2184 Textile Research Journal 88(19)

if the substrate was fixed as the three-dimensional woven

fabric, the radiation patch and ground plane could be
Antenna performances test
designed separately to obtain different patterns by weav- In this study, the two essential antenna performance
ing. Table 1 shows the three types of patches and ground parameters, namely the return loss and radiation
planes. In R-A and G-A, the warp yarns for the radi-
ation patch and ground plane were set along the x-axis
(feeding direction), while the weft yarns were set along Table 2. Antennas with six combinations of radiation patches
the y-axis. In R-B and G-B, the warp yarns for the and ground planes
radiation patch and ground plane were set along the
Antenna Radiation Ground
y-axis, while the weft yarns were set along the x-axis. No. samples patch plane
For comparison, in R-C and G-C, the radiation patch
and ground plane were made of continuous copper foil. 1 R-A/G-A R-A G-A
Therefore, there are six types of antenna designs with 2 R-A/G-C R-A G-C
different combinations of the patches and ground 2 R-B/G-B R-B G-B
planes, as listed in Table 2. 4 R-B/G-C R-B G-C
5 R-C/G-A R-C G-A
Antenna fabrication 6 R-C/G-B R-C G-B

The integrated three-dimensional antennas were fabri-

cated on the three-dimensional weaving machine in our
lab. The substrates of the antennas were made of Table 3. Weaving parameters for the three-dimensional woven
aramid yarns, which are strong and widely used in antennas
bullet proof vests and stab resistance armor. The radi- Yarns thickness
ation patch and ground plane were fabricated with
copper yarns and copper foils. The copper foil had a Aramid
thickness of 0.1 mm; the weaving parameters for Yarns density Copper (Kevlar 129)
the three-dimensional woven antennas are listed in Yarns (ends per inch) (mm) (dtex)
Table 3. The warp and weft yarn densities were Warp yarns 18.4 0.3 1580
chosen according to the reed count of our weaving Weft yarns 15.4 0.8 1580
machine. Figure 3 shows a photograph of six antenna
Z yarns 18.4 — 445
samples and the corresponding antenna structures.

Table 1. Different designs for radiation patches and ground planes

Type
Kuang et al.
Figure 3. Photograph of the antenna samples.
pattern, were investigated. Return loss is the reflection
coefficient in dB, which reflects the impedance matching
and resonant frequency of the antenna. The radiation
pattern of an antenna is a graph of radiation wave
strength characterizing the far-field radiation perform-
ance at a specific frequency. The return loss was mea-
sured by an Agilent N5230A Microwave Network
Analyzer, which has a scanning frequency range from
10 MHz to 20 GHz. The radiation pattern was mea-
sured in an anechoic chamber using the Agilent
N5230A Antenna Test System. The antenna was fixed
with a termination of the section port, and then the
signal of the vertical polarization was transmitted to
the antenna. The radiation pattern was obtained from
the signal received by the 360 rotating antenna. Gains
were calculated by comparing the field values of a refer-
ence-gain horn antenna.
Results and discussion
Return loss
The measured return loss results of the six types
of antennas are plotted in Figure 4. It can be clearly
seen that all the antennas had their resonant
frequencies around the designed working frequency of
1.9 GHz. In addition, the return losses reached the
required value, which is usually lower than 10 dB.
2185
After detailed examination, it was found that the res-
onant frequencies of most of the antennas shifted to a
lower value than the designed one; only the R-C/G-A
antenna sample had a resonant frequency higher than
1.9 GHz. Furthermore, it is interesting to see that the
samples, including R-A/G-A, R-A/G-C and R-C/G-A,
had a smaller frequency shift compared with the coun-
terpart of the designed samples, for example, R-B/G-B,
R-B/G-C and R-C/G-B, implying that the samples
with the warp yarns parallel to the feeding direction
(x direction) had better return loss results than the
warp yarns perpendicular to the feeding direction.
Among these samples, sample R-B/G-B, which had
the radiation patch and ground plane fabricated by
three-dimensional weaving, at the same time with the
warp yarn perpendicular to the feeding direction, had
the largest frequency shift.
The electrical current distributions were analyzed
by using the simulation method for the two types of
woven antennas, namely R-A/G-A and R-B/G-B.
For sample R-A/G-A, the warp yarns in the patch
and ground plane were set along the feeding direction;
for the R-B/G-B sample, the weft yarns were set along
the feeding direction. It can be seen from Figure 5
that most of the currents of both patches gathered
and showed high intensity in the second upper
layer, which was the first warp yarn layer in the
three-dimensional woven fabric. For the microstrip
2186
Figure 4. Simulated and measured return losses of the antennas.
Figure 5. Current distribution in radiation patch of (a) R-A/G-A and (b) R-B/G-B.
antenna, the resonant frequency of the antenna is
related to the patch length. For R-B/G-B, since
the feeding direction was along the weft yarn direction,
the current needed to pass through the gap between the
warp and weft yarns layers, which increased the radi-
ation patch length and decreased the resonant fre-
quency at the same time. This explained the
phenomenon that the resonant frequency of the R-B/
G-B sample had the lowest resonant frequency.
Therefore, in designing a three-dimensional woven
antenna structure, making the feeding direction along
Textile Research Journal 88(19)
the warp direction is crucial to obtain a relatively accur-
ate resonant frequency.
Radiation pattern
The measured radiation patterns were grouped and
are plotted in Figure 6. The radiation pattern is a
solid pattern in three-dimensional space, herein
the H-plane, which is parallel to the magnetic field
orientation and was chosen as a representative radi-
ation pattern plane. Table 4 lists the gain values of
Kuang et al.
Figure 6. Simulated and measured radiation pattern of the antennas: (a) simulated, R-A/G-C and R-B/G-C; (b) simulated, R-C/G-A
and R-C/G-B; (c) simulated, R-A/G-A and R-B/G-B.
Table 4. Measured gain of the antennas
Antenna samples R-A/G-A R-A/G-C
Gain (dBi) –0.1 2.83
the antennas, which are the peak amplitude values in
the radiation patterns of the antennas. All the samples
had relatively similar radiation patterns compared with
the simulated one, indicating the validation of the
design work. In Figures 6(a) and (b), the antennas of
R-A/G-C and R-C/G-A had better radiation patterns
than those of R-B/G-C and R-C/G-B, showing a higher
gain value at 0 degrees and a lower back lobe for the
former than the latters. The results demonstrated that
warp yarns along the feeding direction are beneficial to
the antenna radiation properties compared with warp
yarns perpendicular to the feeding direction in both
the radiation patch and ground plane of the three-
dimensional woven antenna. Figure 6(c) illustrates the
radiation patterns of two three-dimensional antenna full
woven structures, where R-A/G-A shows significantly
2187
R-B/G-B R-B/G-C R-C/G-A R-C/G-B
–3.03 0.85 2.7 1.44
better properties compared with R-B/G-B, which also
resulted from the more current gathering for R-A/G-A
than for R-B/G-B. It can be seen from Table 4 that
among the designed structures, R-A/G-C had the highest
gain value, which resulted from the ideal warp and weft
yarn alignments in the radiation patch. In contrast, R-B/
G-B exhibited the lowest gain value because the warp
and weft yarns of its radiation patch and ground plane
were set perpendicular and along the feeding direction,
which reduced the antenna radiation power.
Yarn parameters effect
The three-dimensional woven antenna is different from
the other traditional antenna structures because the tex-
tile yarns properties would affect the electromagnetic
2188
Figure 7. Effects of (a) conductive layer thicknesses and (b)
conductive warp yarn thickness of R-A/G-A and R-B/G-B on the
resonant frequencies.
properties of the antennas significantly. Figure 7
showed the effects of yarn thickness on the resonant
frequencies. In Figure 7(a), the ratio of the warp and
weft yarn thickness was fixed at 4:9. It can be seen
that as the thicknesses of the warp and weft yarns
were increased, the resonant frequencies of R-A/G-A
remained stable, while those of R-B/G-B showed a pro-
nounced decrease. In Figure 7(b), where the total thick-
ness of the warp and weft yarns was fixed at 1.3 mm, the
resonant frequency of R-A/G-A still remained stable
as the thickness of the warp yarns was increased,
while R-B/G-B showed a significant decreasing trend
at the same time. In R-B/G-B, the current needs to
climb up to the weft yarns from the warp yarns to
achieve polarization, leading to a relatively long path
and correspondingly large patch length; therefore,
the decrease of the frequency was obtained. From the
above analysis, the antenna with the warp yarns along
the feeding direction showed a relatively stable per-
formance when changing yarn thickness, and warp
Textile Research Journal 88(19)
Figure 8. Effect of (a) warp yarn width and (b) weft yarn width
of R-A/G-A and R-B/G-B on resonant frequencies.
yarns forming thin conductive strips are recommended
for the three-dimensional woven antenna design.
The effects of the warp and weft yarns widths on the
resonant frequencies are plotted in Figure 8. In
Figure 8(a), as the warp yarn width increases, R-A/G-A
showed a minor decrease while R-B/G-B showed a sig-
nificant increase. However, in Figure 8(b), both of
the antennas showed relatively smooth curves, indicating
that the weft yarn width does not influence the resonant
frequencies much. Therefore, warp yarns forming
wide conductive strips, such as low twist yarns, are rec-
ommended to be used for three-dimensional woven
antennas.
Conclusions
In this study, to investigate the effects of weaving struc-
tures on the performance of three-dimensional woven
antennas, six types of antenna samples have been
designed and fabricated. All the antennas exhibited
adequate return losses with values lower than 10dB
Kuang et al.
on the resonant frequencies and at the same time
showed proper radiation patterns. Among them, the
antennas with the warp yarns parallel to the feeding
direction had more accurate resonant frequencies and
higher radiation power than the antennas with the warp
yarns perpendicular to the feeding direction. By com-
bining the simulation and experimental methods, the
reason was analyzed that the antennas with warp
yarns perpendicular to the feeding direction had a
longer current path and lower current intensity.
The results indicated that the weaving structure of
warp yarns parallel to the feeding direction was more
valid in three-dimensional woven textile antennas.
In addition, the influences of yarn thickness and
width together with yarns space on the antenna per-
formance were discussed. It is concluded that the con-
ductive yarns which are easy to form thin and wide
conductive strips in the conductive layers are recom-
mended in the antenna fabrication. In summary, the
ideal three-dimensional woven antennas could be rea-
lized by optimizing the necessary influence factors.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This work was supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 50803010), the Natural
Science Foundation of Shanghai (No. 14ZR1400100 and
No. 14ZR1401000) and the Fundamental Research Funds
for the Central Universities (No. 2232015D3-03, no.
EG2016003 and no. CUSF-DH-D-2016013).
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