Wearable Textile Antennas

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International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education

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Wearable textile antennas

Jung-Sim Roh , Yong-Seung Chi & Tae Jin Kang
a b c a b c
Intelligent Textile System Research Centre Fashion Textile Centre
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-744, Republic of Korea Available online: 04 Oct 2010
To cite this article: Jung-Sim Roh, Yong-Seung Chi & Tae Jin Kang (2010): Wearable textile antennas, International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, 3:3, 135-153 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2010.521194
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International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education Vol. 3, No. 3, November 2010, 135153
REVIEW ARTICLE Wearable textile antennas

Jung-Sim Roha, Yong-Seung Chib and Tae Jin Kanga,b,c*
a
Intelligent Textile System Research Centre; bFashion Textile Centre; cDepartment of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-744, Republic of Korea (Received 14 July 2010; nal version received 20 September 2010) Owing to the rapid progress in fabrication technologies of conductive brous materials and the increasing demand for wireless communications in smart clothing systems, the potential application of wearable textile antennas in this eld continues to increase. This article reviews a variety of wearable textile antennas in order to provide background information and application ideas for designing such antennas. The various materials used in the construction of wearable textile antennas, their fabrication methods, as well as the antenna types and their application elds are summarised. Owing to the high conductivity of metals, various metal composite yarns (MCYs) and fabrics have been used in the production of textile antennas. For inductively coupled near-eld communication within smart clothing systems, woven or embroidered multiturn loop antennas are suggested. For far-eld communication, a variety of broadband textile antennas were developed to counterbalance the detuning caused by the presence of a human body. Embroidered-folded dipole array antennas, metal-coated fabric patched bowtie and spiral antennas, a microstrip patch antenna array and a coplanar antenna made of metal-coated fabric patches and a ground plane, are the antennas that cover a broad spectrum and thus are capable of operating on the body. Keywords: wearable textile antennas; embroidered antenna; conductive fabric patch antenna; printed textile antenna; broadband textile antennas; textile antenna arrays
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1.
Introduction
As fabrication technologies for conductive brous materials have rapidly progressed in recent years, the door to producing exible structures for wearable electrical and electronic systems has opened even wider. In this context, conventional textile industries have employed new strategies to support the innovation of smart products and enhance their functions. As a result, the production of smart textile systems is now becoming a reality based on the successful convergence of conventional textile-producing technology with other branches of science such as material science, sensor and actuator technology, data processing and communicating technology, electronics and electromagnetic engineering, articial intelligence, bio-technology, etc. Currently, reduced-sized electronic devices or electrical circuit components are being built on or incorporated into textile-based structures using available technologies. As the demand for wearable smart textile systems continues to increase, the interest in body-worn antennas is growing, thanks to the expanding wireless applications for smart interactive textile systems. As clothing provides sucient area to place antennas, which usually require a relatively large space, and textile antennas ensure wearing comfort owing to their exibility, conformability and lightness, much research
on smart textile systems has been focused on wearable textile antennas. The potential applications of wearable textile antennas are diverse, ranging from medical applications to health, sports, military and space applications (Jung et al. 2003, Dobbins et al. 2006, Locher et al. 2006, Salonen and Rahmat-Samii 2007, Visser and Reniers 2007, Hertleer et al. 2009, Kennedy et al. 2009, Vallozzi et al. 2009, Zhu and Langley 2009a). Early wearable antennas were non-brous sti conductive structures constructed on a textile substrate, such as the inverted-F shape antenna by Salonen et al. (2000) and Massey (2001), rectangular patches of copper foils by Tanaka and Jang (2003), and linear patches of copper foil tape on eece fabric by Kellomaki et al. (2006). Recently, by using various conductive brous materials, textile antennas made of purely conductive brous materials have been successfully integrated into clothing. However, many design constraints follow the integration of antennas into clothing due to the physical inhomogeneity of textile materials, the proximity of a lossy human body or other irregular ground conditions, and dierent polarisation due to body movements. Therefore, by reviewing a variety of wearable textile antennas, including the conductive brous
*Corresponding author. Email: taekang@snu.ac.kr

ISSN 1754-3266 print/ISSN 1754-3274 online 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/17543266.2010.521194 http://www.informaworld.com
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J.-S. Roh et al. conducting yarns (Figure 1). Conducting warp yarns in the upper layer and conducting weft yarns in the lower layer are only in contact at the corners to form an antenna coil and are insulated by an intermediate nonconducting textile layer (Gimpel et al. 2004). This method requires bonding with conducting adhesive at every contact point of the warp and weft conductive yarns in the three-layered structure. This procedure is complicated and time-consuming. 2.1.2. Weaving with insulated conductive yarns With insulated conductive yarns, basic weaving and special fusing technologies have been used to form desired circuits (Figure 2(a)) (Jung et al. 2003, Locher and Troster 2007). Figure 2(b) and (c) shows superne metal laments embedded into plain woven fabrics. Figure 2(b) is PowerMatrix1 produced by SEFAR (Locher 2007), which is a hybrid fabric consisting of insulated Ag-coated copper monolaments and polyester (PET) monolament in both warp and weft. The ductile but weak metal laments are able to maintain their conductivity without yarn breakage and deformation within the woven structure of PET due to the high strength and low elasticity of PET. Roh et al. (2008, 2009) produced metal composite yarns (MCYs) which can be woven into fabrics on a commercial automatic rapier loom. The MCYs consisted of superne metal laments, stainless steel (: 35 mm), Ag-coated copper (: 40 mm), or polyesterimide-coated Ag-coated copper (Cu: 40 mm, total: 47 mm) and PET multilaments. The PET was incorporated to prevent the metal laments from extending and breaking during the weaving process. With a PET lament as a core, a metal lament wrapped the core PET lament in the Z-direction with
materials used, their fabrication methods, as well as the antenna types and their application elds, the important points to be considered when designing wearable textile antennas are summarised in this article. 2. Materials and fabrication methods
Conductive materials used for producing textile antennas include metallic yarns, yarns made from conductive polymers, polymer yarns containing high levels of conducting particles, such as carbon or silver, and conducting thin inorganic lms (Ghosh et al. 2006). Textile antennas can be made either by weaving, embroidering, laminating or printing. The level of conductivity and the textile-processibility of the conductive materials are the most important aspects to be considered in producing textile antennas. In many cases, conductive composite fabrics that have a thin layer of metal coating on a non-conductive fabric base or those containing metal laments were the choice for the production of radio frequency (RF) engineered textiles owing to the characteristic physical properties of metals, i.e. their high conductivity, ductility and malleability. 2.1. Weaving Metal composite fabrics containing superne metal laments or metal-coated polymer yarns opened the door to a new generation of multifunctional and interactive textiles by replacing traditional metal wire technology (Roh et al. 2009). Superne metal laments of silver, copper, or Ag-coated copper with diameters in the range of 2060 mm have been used to form woven electrical circuits. Metal-coated polymer yarns have also been woven into textile materials to be used as antennas, textile electronic buses or as exible electronic boards. But unlike metal laments, metalcoated polymer yarns require additional galvanic deposition of metal to approach skin depth and supply the required conductivity to such structures. Skin depth is the depth below the surface of the conductor at which the current is 1/e times the current at the surface. For example, an Ag-coated polyamide yarn is able to achieve a resistance as low as 14 O/m when Auplated (: 1*2 mm) (Kallmayer et al. 2003, Gimpel et al. 2004). 2.1.1. Jacquard weaving with non-insulated conductive yarns When using non-insulated conductive yarns, jacquard weaving has been used to produce multi-layer structures in order to prevent short circuits due to crossing
Figure 1. Three-layered structure of a woven coil with noninsulated conductive warp and weft of Au/Ag-coated polyamide yarns only in contact at the corners to form a multi-turn loop (Gimpel et al. 2004).
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Figure 2. Woven fabrics with embedded insulated conductive yarns: (a) design of a woven coil using insulated metal laments by Inneon Technologies AG (Jung et al. 2003), (b) micrograph of a woven fabric of insulated copper wire of Powermatrix by SEFAR (Locher 2007), and (c) Metal composite fabric produced with MCY containing an Ag-copper lament by Roh (2010).
500 TPM (twists per metre), and then another PET lament wrapped the previous metal wrapped PET yarn in the S-direction with 500 TPM (Figure 2(c)). Metal composite fabrics could be easily constructed inserting MCYs in certain intervals as warp and weft to obtain dierent metal densities. To bond the crossing warp and weft of polyesterimide-coated Ag-copper laments, a laser beam was used to remove the PET substrate and to skin the polyesterimide-insulation coating from the Ag-copper lament. For skinning, an Excimer laser XeCl (at 308 nm) or Nd-YAG laser (at 355 nm) with pulse energy 1.01 J/cm2, pulse rate 500 Hz, and pulse duration 25 ns, was applied. The laments were cut with a laser beam using a higher uence than that applied for skinning and the bare warp and weft metal laments were interconnected using a conductive adhesive. As the last step, epoxy resin was deposited to encapsulate the connection (Figure 3) (Kirstein 2005). 2.2. Embroidering of conductive yarns
Figure 3. Bonding technologies of insulated copper laments: (a) laser skinning, (b) adhesive dispensing, (c) laser cutting and (d) epoxy protection (Kirstein 2005).
Machine embroidering of conductive yarns on textile substrates is considered a very attractive approach to produce textile-based circuits due to the freedom of circuit design and ease of fabrication (Ghosh et al. 2006). Embroidering of conductive yarns can be widely used for wire-line integration of electronic devices and
for the construction of various circuit components such as inductor, capacitor and transmission line electrodes for sensing and antenna circuits for wireless communications.
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J.-S. Roh et al. computer numeric control (CNC) embroidering, due to the plasticity of stainless steel and copper. 2.2.2. Plied yarn of metal-coated polymer laments A variety of metal-coated polymer yarns with trade names such as X-static1, Agposs1 (Figure 5(a)), Shieldex1, Aracon1, AmberStrandTM (Figure 5(b)), etc. are available as conductive embroidery yarns. The consumer can choose among a variety of metal types, coating thicknesses and the number of laments and strands to meet individual requirements. Compared to pure metal laments, the exibility, lightness and strength of metal-coated polymer yarns make them more similar to common textile materials. So despite their lower conductivity, these conductive yarns have been applied in exible circuitry, electrical interconnections, cables and bio-monitoring sensors (Linz et al. 2005, Sosnowski 2007). Among these, Aracon1 and AmberStrandTM, where high-performance polymer bres such as Kevlar1 (para-Aramid) and Zylon1 (PBO, Poly-phenylene benzobisoxazole) are used as the base lament, can be directly soldered using a soldering iron (NASA 2007, Syscom Technology Inc. 2005) Generally, metal-coated yarns have considerably less-than-ideal conductivity and inhomogeneous structures with shallow skin depth (Shaw et al. 2007). So, in order to reduce the electrical resistance of a metalcoated yarn circuit to a desired level, current commercial metal-coated polymer yarns require additional galvanic deposition of metals to increase their skin depth. Another existing problem with metal-coated polymer yarns, especially those that are nylon-based, is that they contract at temperatures over their glass transition temperature. Thus, the resistivity of the interconnection between the metal-coated polymer yarns and devices can be modied permanently depending on the environmental temperature (Simon 2009). Moreover, the metal coating has poor durability due to its low abrasion resistance. 2.2.3. Composite yarn consisting of metal laments and polymer laments As shown in Table 2, stainless steel laments have better tensile properties than silver-coated copper laments; thus, it is easier to make MCYs using stainless steel laments than silver-coated copper laments. Post et al. (2000) reported a stainless steel composite embroidery yarn, VN 140 nyl/35 6 3, having a nylon core wrapped in three crossing superne stainless steel laments. Unfortunately, the electrical resistance of this yarn was too high to match the conductivity of conventional printed circuits, and due to the high rigidity and plasticity of the stainless steel
During high speed embroidering, the embroidery yarn, especially the needle yarn, is subjected to high tension, which adversely inuences the quality of the yarn. Thus, to be used in machine embroidering, high mechanical properties are required of the yarn (Sundaresan et al. 1997, Costs Technical Services 2007). Mallet and Du (1999) have measured the sewing force of a sewing machine using a piezoelectric strain gauge sensor. They reported that the sewing force was 5.6 N at a sewing speed of 1000 rpm, and 6.1 N at 2000 rpm on a 1 mm-thick substrate. Therefore, conductive embroidery yarns should possess good mechanical properties to reduce the number of breaks and the amount of strain in order to maintain their conductivity. High tensile strength and modulus are required for these yarns, as well as a smooth surface for less friction and uniform yarn diameter. These qualities will prevent yarn breakage during the embroidering process and shrinkage afterwards, providing uniform conductivity and dimensional stability of the resulting embroidered circuit. Up until now, three types of conductive embroidery yarns (Roh et al. 2009) have been developed and used in the construction of electrical circuits, and the characteristics of these yarns are listed in Table 1.
2.2.1. Embroidering of metal lament bundles 2.2.1.1. Plied yarn of stainless steel laments. Commercially available plied bundles of stainless steel lament have been used in the construction of embroidered circuits. Figure 4 shows a three-plied yarn of stainless steel (AISI 316L) laments where the diameter of the monolament is 12 mm, number of laments is 275, and is twisted in the S direction with 175 TPM (Bekinox 2006). Compared to copper, stainless steel has better mechanical properties. But although the mechanical properties are better than copper, the conductivity of this stainless steel yarn is comparably lower, so its usage is limited to textile sensors or electrodes rather than RF engineering applications. 2.2.1.2. Stainless steel yarn with a copper core. Coosemans et al. (2006) used a stainless steel yarn (: 19 mm) with a copper lament core (: 79 mm) and produced an embroidered transponder antenna (Figure 15(b)). The resistance of this yarn was quite low, 0.20 O/m, but due to the limited winding density of the yarn, an antenna with the optimal number of turns (N 33) could not be produced. Although Coosemans et al. did not comment on the mechanical properties and the yarn structure, it is likely that this yarn cannot be used for high-speed
Table 1. Research group (trade name) Yarn specications

1
Characteristics of currently developed conductive embroidery yarns. Thickness (linear density) Three plies of stainless steel laments (12 mm 6 275f) Resistivity (O/m) 630 mm (760 tex) 9.13 0.20 *1000
Yarn type Bekinox VN (12/ 3 6 275/175S/316L) (BEKAERT 2006) Coosemans et al. (2006)
Bundle of metal laments
Plied yarn of stainless steel multi-laments
Stainless steel yarns with a copper core
Metal lament composite yarn IBM, Post et al. (Bekinox1 VN 140 nyl/35 6 3) (Post et al. 2000) Ohmatex, Bi-component yarn (Ohmatex 2004a) Roh et al. (2009)
Stainless steel/nylon
Ag-copper/polyester
400 mm (40 mm: 72.6 tex, 63 mm: 109 tex) Upper yarn: 286 mm (59.8 tex), lower yarn: 272 mm (59.0 tex) (23.4 tex) 455 mm (66.6 tex) 15 mm 6 (24f200f) 104.3 tex
7.75, 3.25
Ag-copper/polyester
3.89, 3.88
Plied yarn of metalcoated polymer laments
Silver plated nylon
Stainless steel yarns (: 19 mm) with a copper wire core yarn (: 79 mm), limited circuit designs Nylon core wrapped with three crossing stainless steel laments, suitable as lower yarn for CNC embroidery Polyester (240 dtex/48 f 6 2) air textured yarn with silver-plated copper lament (40 mm: 123 dtex 6 2, 63 mm: 305 dtex 6 2) Three plies of Ag-copper lament (40 mm) and polyester (83 dtex/36 f), suitable as both upper and lower yarn for CNC embroidery Two plies of Shieldex1 117/17dtex
350 26.2 *0.1 7.87
Silver-coated polyester
Metal plated aramid
Silver-coated PBO
Fraunhofer IZM (Linz 2009) Mitsufuji Textile Ind. Co., Ltd. (AGposs1) DuPont (Aracon1) (Post et al. 2000) AmberStrandTM (Syscom Technology Inc. 2005)
Three plies of Ag-coated polyester laments Plied yarn of silver, nickel, copper, gold or tin clad aramid Three plies of Ag-coated PBO
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140
J.-S. Roh et al. diameter) processed with polyester laments (Figure 7). Using MCEY as the upper yarn or the lower yarn of a CNC embroidering machine, they embroidered precise electrical circuits on a textile substrate with ease, without any design constraints. The MCEY that was used as the upper yarn of CNC embroidering has been processed with higher TPM (turns per metre) compared to the MCEY that was used as the lower yarn to provide better mechanical properties. The resulting upper (U-) MCEY yarn had a yarn thickness of 286 mm and an electrical resistance of 3.89 O/m. On the contrary, the lower thread of CNC embroidering should be thin and pliable, and thus, the lower (L-) MCEY has been produced to have a yarn thickness of 272 mm and the electrical resistance was 3.88 O/m. By using the lower-embroidery method, line gaps between the MCEY lines could be controlled to 0.6 mm, while with the upper-embroidery method 1 mm was the narrowest line gap possible.
laments, this yarn will not be suitable for CNC embroidering. Ohmatex (2004a) has developed a bi-component yarn composed of two strands of silver-plated copper laments (40 mm or 63 mm) and polyester laments (240d/48f 6 2) through an air texturing process to lock them together (Figure 6). The resistance and linear density of the yarns with Ag-Copper 40 mm or 63 mm were 7.75 O/m, 726 dtex and 3.25 O/m, 1090 dtex, respectively. The producer has reported a theoretical probability of 63% that a break would not reduce the conductive capacity of the yarn, and thus it is suitable for constructing an embroidered electrode (Ohmatex 2004b). However, electrically conductive embroidery yarns to be applied in RF engineering textile systems should possess the lowest possible electrical resistance, embroidering processibility without yarn breakage, and high durability to maintain constant electrical conductivity. Roh et al. (2009) have developed a metal composite embroidery yarn (MCEY), which consists of three strands of silver-plated copper laments (40 mm in
2.3. Conductive textile patches 2.3.1. Metal-coated fabric patch and ground To be used as antenna patches and ground planes, conductive textiles must possess the following characteristics: (1) a surface resistivity below 1 O/sq, (2) a homogeneous sheet resistance and (3) exible but inelastic mechanical properties to ensure uniform electrical properties (Locher et al. 2006, Zhu and Langley 2009b). Silver-, copper-, nickel- or tin-plated synthetic fabrics are commercially available, sold under the trade names, Zelt, Flec Tron1, ShielditTM, Nora1, etc. Such metalised fabrics have been used in constructing conductive patches and grounds of textile antennas owing to their low surface resistivity (51 O/sq), small variance in surface resistance and their exible but inelastic properties. Laser beams can be used to precisely cut conductive patches in the designed shapes.
Figure 4. Micrograph of a three-plied yarn of stainless steel laments (Bekinox1 VN 12/3 6 275 of BEKAERT).
Figure 5. Micrograph of embroidery yarns made of Ag-coated polymer laments: (a) three-plied silver-coated polyester yarns (AGposs, Mitsufuji Textile Ind. Co., Ltd.) and (b) three-plied Ag-coated PBO (Syscom Technology Inc. 2005).

Table 2. Characteristics of metal laments and a polyester lament used in the metal composite yarns of Roh (2010). MCY components (ID) Silver-plated copperb Stainless steel (SS)a Specications Diameter (mm) Linear density (dtex) DC resistance (O/m) Tensile properties Youngs modulus (N/tex) Load at yield (N) Max. load (N) Strain (%)
a b
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Bare (Cub) 40 112 13.4 6.96 0.167 0.288 16.7
Polyesterimide coated (Cuc) 40 (total: 48) 116 13.7 6.72 0.154 0.329 20.7
Polyester (P) 0.103 83 (36f) n.a. 9.97 1.03 4.35 13.2
35 80 735 28.2 0.475 0.863 36.2
SS: Bekaert Bekinox1 VN 35/1 6 1, Belgium. Cub: TW-O, Cuc: TW-D, Elektrisola, Switzerland.
Figure 6. Air textured bi-component yarn containing two strands of Ag-copper laments by Ohmatex (2004a).
2.3.2. Non-conductive textile substrates Non-conductive textile substrates, which are used as dielectric layers between an antenna patch and a ground plane, require constant thickness of a few millimetres and low permittivity (Locher et al. 2006). Thus, for a textile antenna to obtain dimensional stability, highly resilient airy textiles such as a porous mesh of synthetic bres (Locher et al. 2006), exible foam (Hertleer et al. 2009), felt (Locher et al. 2006, Kennedy et al. 2009, Zhu and Langley 2009a), or polar-eece (Zhu and Langley 2009a) have been used as non-conductive textile substrates (Table 3). In order to design textile-based antennas, the electromagnetic properties of the materials to be used at the operating frequency bands must be known. For example, from Table 3, the porous polyamide mesh fabric with a thickness of 6 mm has a permittivity er 1.14 at a frequency of 2.4 GHz, and loss tangent is negligible (Locher et al. 2006). 2.3.3. Attachment Antenna patches can be attached onto textile substrates by applying adhesives or sewing, but the
Figure 7. Micrographs of the MCEYs and the CNC embroidery process by Roh et al. (2009): (a) U-MCEY and U-embroidery and (b) L-MCEY and L-embroidery.
electrical permittivity and loss tangent of the substrate material are known to be aected by the use of adhesives. Locher et al. (2006) reported that thermally activated adhesive sheets showed the best results among liquid textile adhesives, point-wise application of conductive adhesives, sewing and adhesive sheets, in bonding a conductive patch onto a non-conductive substrate fabric. By using thermally activated sheets, a relatively thin layer of adhesive that only penetrated the surface of the conductive fabric was deposited, and thus, the patch sheet resistance and substrate permittivity of the conductive patch was left unaltered (Figure 8(a)). Sewing is also a commonly used method due to the durability of the attachment, although it induces wrinkles on the antenna patch (Figure 8(b)).
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Table 3.
J.-S. Roh et al.

Dielectric properties of various non-conductive textile substrates. Polyamide mesh (Locher et al. 2006) 6 1.14 Negligible Foam (Hertleer et al. 2009) 3.94 1.52 0.012 Woolen felt (Locher et al. 2006) 3.5 1.45 0.02 Nomex felt (Kennedy et al. 2009) 6.35 1.18 0.004 Fleece (Zhu and Langley 2009) 2.55 2.17 0.0035
Materials Thickness (mm) Permittivity (er0 ) Loss tangent (d)
Figure 8. Attachment of metal-coated fabric patches on non-conductive textile substrates: (a) thermally activated adhesive bonding of Ni-/Cu-/Ag-coated nylon on a polyamide mesh (Troster 2005, Locher et al. 2006) and (b) Ni-/Cu-/Ag-coated nylon sewn equiangular spiral antenna on polyester cloth (Kennedy et al. 2007).
2.4.
Printed textile circuits
2.4.1. Printing Printing, by the means of silk-screening or ink-jet deposition, of conductive ink is one of the most convenient methods of introducing conductive materials onto textile substrates. Bidoki et al. (2005, 2007) suggested a simple, environmentally safe and economical process for ink-jet metal deposition on a textile substrate using commercially available ink-jet printers (Figure 9). The textile substrate was rst printed with a reducing agent ink (ascorbic acid or hydroxylamine) and then with a metal salt ink (silver nitrate). When the metal salt comes in contact with the reducing agent, insoluble metallic particles are generated, which grow very quickly in dierent shapes. The thickness of the deposited layer may be increased by repeating the inkjet deposition process. The conductivity level of the ink-jet deposited silver pattern on cotton fabric (8.76 6 104 S/m) dropped to one-third of that on PET transparency paper (2.71 6 105 S/m), where silver wire has a conductivity of 6.173 6 107 S/m. 2.4.2. Etching As shown in Figure 10, by adopting etch patterning of silver-coated fabrics using PCB (printed circuit board) fabrication methods and equipment, the CircuiteXTM technology of X-Static1 allows conversion from conventional PCB/PWB (printed wiring board) and ex boards to a fabric circuit (Sosnowski 2007, Noble
Biomaterials 2006). This technology oers the ability to transfer power and data in a highly electrically conductive, lightweight, durable and exible product. However, the drawbacks are the environmentally harmful process and low durability of the silver coating. 3. Textile antennas
Three types of communication take place in smart clothing systems: internal communication, personal space communication and external communication. Internal communication refers to data transfer among separate components of a distributed smart clothing implementation, i.e. within the users clothing or between dierent smart clothing layers. Personal space communication takes place when internal communication components initiate data transfer with the environment without a centralised access point, and is restricted to the users close proximity. Third, external communication is data transfer between smart clothing and external information networks or other users (Rantanen and Hannikainen 2005). In order to realise wireless reception and transmission of data for such on-body and o-body communication, antennas must be integrated into clothing (Proetex 2004). As textile-based antennas are exible, conformable and light, they can be easily integrated into clothing. Therefore, textile-based antennas are suitable for human body-centric wireless communication. In the RF antenna industry, common antenna operating frequencies are 125 kHz, 13.56 MHz, FM
International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education broadcast band (87 MHz to 107.5 MHz), 433 MHz, 800/900 MHz, 2.4 GHz or even 5 GHz and beyond. Low-frequency (LF) systems are used as inductive near-eld link of RF elds for data communication and powering, while higher frequency systems are used for microwave scattering and radiation, and thus the data transmission rate can be increased with higher frequency carrier far-eld communication systems (Hum 2001, Mayer 2009). Therefore, in near-eld communication (NFC), the distance of communication is considerably less than RF carrier wavelength, while in far-eld communication (FFC) systems, used in most traditional radios, the communication distance considerably exceeds the carrier wavelength (Sarpeshkar 2010). In this section, various wearable textile antennas are reviewed. Antenna types, the materials used and fabrication methods along with their characteristics and applications are listed and discussed. The human body eect and antenna exure, which are important factors to be considered when designing wearable textile antennas, are also reviewed. A variety of wearable textile antennas for near-eld communication (NFC) and for far-eld communication (FFC) are summarised in Tables 4 and 5, respectively. 3.1. Inductively coupled near-eld communication (NFC)
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Near-eld communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless communication technology in the LF and high-frequency (HF), bands, which allows simple intuitive initialisation of the wireless network to nonself-powered devices. A tight, low power, non-propagating magnetic eld between the devices, where two inductive coils located within each others near eld, eectively form an air-core transformer (Figure 11) (Mayer 2009). Nowadays, inductive coupling comes into the forefront for various smart interactive textile systems as low energy consumption NFC. As the strength of the inductive RF elds (H) decays to the third power of distance (r) (jHj * 1/r3) and the power transmission loss between coils decays with the transmission distance to the power of 6 (PTag * 1/r6), the range of the inductive RF elds can be restricted to the surface of the clothing and not radiate into the body. Also, the zone of communication is mainly localised to the overlapping regions of the RF antennas (Hum 2001). According to the law of induction, the opencircuit voltage of the coil can be increased by enlarging the coil diameter, increasing the number of turns and reducing the conductor width. But additional turns cause losses in the antenna that are related to the total resistance of the spiral conductor. The most ecient antenna can be constructed by optimising the number of turns and the width of the conductor, given xed dimensions (Mayer 2009). 3.1.1. NFC for internal communication
Figure 9. Silver-printed inductive coil on cotton fabric (Bidoki et al. 2007).
The rst attempt for applying near-eld inductive coupling of RF elds to on-body communication was made by Hum (2001). To enable wireless communications across dierent pieces of clothing and gaps, named a fabric area network (FAN), repeater RF links are implemented like a hopping network of transformer chains. The FAN was based on 125 kHz RFID
Figure 10.
Fabric PCB by etching with spandex exibility: CircuiteXTM by X-static1 (Sosnowski 2007).
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J.-S. Roh et al. logic and inductive transmitter (TX, 3.1 mH). The conductive yarn embroidered receiver (RX, 27 mH) in the trouser leg overlaid the TX and received signals via inductive coupling despite much smaller eld strengths (Figure 14(a)). Similarly, Figure 14(b) shows embroidered coils used for inductively coupled interconnection between an mp3-player box and earphones in a jacket (Troster 2005). 3.1.2. NFC for personal space communication
(Radio-Frequency Identication) technology with antenna coils with a square outline of 5 cm on each side with 15 turns of 0.25 mm insulated wires (Figure 12(a)). Antennas were routed to the trouser pockets (front and back), shirt pockets, cus of the trousers, sleeves, the back of the shirt and other locations. These antennas can then be used to communicate with transponder chips that are embedded in the wallet, shoes, pens, watches, accessories or personal items in a back-pack that is slung on the back or shoulders (Figure 12(b)). Similarly, Yoo et al. (2009) have also developed an inter-clothes network using inductive coupling between woven square spiral inductors with 2.5 mH inductance (Figure 13(a)). They used a conductive core spun yarn of KITECH (Korea Institute of Industrial Technology) that is composed of seven strands of 10 mm copper alloy laments insulated with uorine resin (Figure 13(b)). The DC resistance and linear density of the conductive yarn were 7.5 O/m and 175 Tex, respectively (Chung 2009). The yarn was hand stitched on the garment to create the inductors, thus there are limitations in constructing precise circuits with this yarn. Locher et al. (2004) reported a locomotion sensor within a textile-based wireless body area network (WBAN) system motivated by the principle of RFID technology. They chose the carrier frequency in the industrial, scientic and medical (ISM) band of 6.78 MHz, but they failed in matching the target frequency. The autonomous locomotion sensor system was embedded in the boot, including battery, control
Catrysse et al. (2004) reported textile sensors for wireless electrocardiograms (ECG) and respiration rate monitoring of hospitalised children. For wireless transmission of the recorded data from the body-worn sensors to a base station, the primary coil was integrated in the mattress, and the secondary coil, on the suit. The secondary coil was a 6-turn circular spiral inductor with a diameter of 12.5 cm, constructed with a stainless steel yarn with an inductance value of 2.9 mH and quality factor of 0.72 at 700 kHz (Figure 15(a)). The inductive link operated within a maximum coil separation range of 6 cm at a frequency of 700 kHz. Coosemans et al. (2006) constructed a body-worn transponder antenna embroidered with a composite yarn made of stainless steel yarns and a copper core (electrical resistance: 0.20 O/m), to monitor ECG as an embedded patient monitoring system (Figure 15(b)). The inductance of the 10 cmdiameter embroidered coil was 13.7 mH, and the quality factor was 17.2 at 132 kHz. The coil of the
Table 4.
Wearable textile antennas for near-eld communication (NFC). Frequency 125 kHz 6.78 MHz Fabrication method Attachment of 15 turns of 0.25-mm insulated wire 15 turns of conductive yarn (27 mH) Size 5 cm 6 5 cm Specications, applications FAN, non-textile processibility WBAN for locomotion analysis Operating distance of 6 cm at 700 kHz WBAN, Limited circuit design Over 50-cm readout distance WBAN within 1 m
Antenna type For internal communication Square coil by Hum (2001) Square coil by Locher et al. (2004)
For personal space communication Circular coil by Catrysse 700 kHz et al. (2004) Circular coil by 132 kHz Coosemans et al. (2006) 13.56 MHz Multi-turn rectangular loop RFID transponder by Reichl et al. (2006) 13.56 MHz Dual multi-turn circular loop RFID reader/ transponder by Roh (2010)
Appliqued 6-turn spiral inductor (diameter: 12.5 cm) Embroidery of a stainless steel lament wrapped copper core yarn 3-layered jacquard woven Au-/ Ag-coated polyamide laments CNC embroidery of MCEY (Linz 2009); TX: 4 turn outer loop/6 turn inner loop with 1 cm line intervals; RX: 6 turn outer loop/10 turn inner loop with 1 mm line intervals
12.5 cm *10 cm 46 cm 6 6 cm
TX: 28 cm; RX: 6.5 cm
International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education transponder antenna had a limited winding density due to the fabrication method, so the optimal number of turns could not be attained. Kallmayer et al. (2003) and Reichl et al. (2006) constructed 13.56 MHz textile transponder antennas for smart labels to be used in hospitals, which could be washed at 958C, pressed with 28 bar and dried above 1008C. The textile transponder antenna was woven into a three-layered weave on a jacquard loom (Figures 1 and 16), as mentioned in section 2.1.1., using a Auplated Ag-coated polymer yarn. Additional Au-plating of 12 mm was deposited on a commercially available Ag-coated polyamide yarn, reducing the resistance of the yarn to about 14 O/m, and permitting a reading distance of about 50 cm with the Philips i-code System.
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Figure 11. Principle of inductive coupling between reader and transponder (Mayer 2009).
Small modules (2 6 4 mm2) were connected to the antenna, and by using commercial glob top material, which is often used in chip-on-board technology, a thin encapsulation was created. Jung et al. (2003) also reported a similar approach using insulated metal wires as warp and weft in a single-layer fabric (Figure 2(a)) to fully embed the antenna structure into the fabric in an unobtrusive but secure way. A new approach for WBAN, consisting of a set of mobile and wearable intercommunicating sensors that can be used for monitoring real-time vital body parameters or movements has been suggested. Roh (2010) proposed an embroidered multi-turn loop antenna system based on 13.56 MHz RFID technology (Figure 17), using the above-mentioned MCEY embroidering method in section 2.2.3 and Figure 7. Clothing provides sucient area for placing the transmitting antenna (maximum diameter: 28 cm), while the size of the receiving antenna (maximum diameter: 6.5 cm) was limited to that of the mobile device. The dual multi-turn loop structure of Rohs antenna, where a pair of inner and outer multi-turn loops was embroidered on the same fabric plane and connected to the port in parallel, reduced the DC resistance and increased the mutual inductance between the inner and outer loops. When worn on the body, the resonance frequency of the antenna dropped from that measured in free space due to human body losses. To operate well, both on and o the body, the inner loop of the transmitter antenna was tuned to resonate at 13.56 MHz in free space and the outer loop was tuned to resonate at 15.2 MHz in free space, each using the appropriate series capacitor. S21 from transmitting antennas on a body-phantom to the
Figure 12. Fabric area network by Hum (2001): (a) wireless transfer of RF energy across two antenna coils built on fabrics and (b) base-station layer supplying power to devices attached on clothing (left) and set up of wireless communications with a bag containing contents (such as cellphones) that have transponder chips embedded (right).
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Figure 13. Inter-clothes network using inductive coupling between textile inductors by Yoo et al. (2009): (a) illustration of interclothes network and (b) hand embroidered square spiral inductors using the conductive core spun yarn.
Figure 14. Textile coils for inductive signal transmission: (a) wireless locomotion analysis system (Locher et al. 2004) and (b) wireless connection of mp3-player to jacket (Troster 2005).
receiving antenna was 735 dB and 737 dB at operating distances 50 cm and 75 cm, respectively. 3.2. Far-eld communication (FFC) for external communication In order to operate well irrespective of the presence of the human body, broadband antennas, array antennas and multiband antennas are preferred as wearable antennas. Owing to their inherent wideband characteristics, such antennas are less aected by the impedance mismatch caused by human body losses and body movements. 3.2.1. Dipole antennas 3.2.1.1. Folded dipole antennas. Visser and Reniers (2007) developed a wearable embroidered folded dipole array antenna to be used in a wearable
communication system, which was a 2.45 GHz twoelement LPFDA (Log Periodic Folded Dipole Array) antenna. As shown in Figure 18, the antenna was hand-embroidered onto a cotton fabric using a stainless steel yarn. This antenna had good input matching over a wide frequency band but the resonance frequency shifted from the required 2.45 GHz, both in free space and on the upper arm. In free space, the return loss was over 7.0 dB from 1.95 GHz to 2.25 GHz, and the maximum return loss was about 11.8 dB at 2.2 GHz, while on the arm, the maximum return loss was 12 dB at 1.8 GHz. This eect was due to the fact that the tolerances on the antenna construction have not been tight because of the stretching of the cotton substrate during fabrication, as well as the coupling eect of the human body. Roh et al. (2010) have also considered the human body eect when designing an embroidered wearable

Table 5. Wearable textile antennas for far-eld communication (FFC). Frequency 2.45 GHz 87107 MHz 24 GHz 2.42.4835 GHz Fabrication method Hand embroidery of stainless steel yarn on cotton fabric MCEY CNC embroidery on polyester woven fabric Ni-Cu-Ag nylon (Nora1, 0.03 O/sq) spiral antenna sewn on polyester cloth Metal-coated fabric antenna patch (ShielditTM) and ground (Flectron1): 50.1 O/sq, re-resistant/ water-repellent foam substrate (3.94 mm) 144 cm 6 10 cm 60.9 mm (outer radius) 50 mm (L) 6 46 mm (W) 6 8 mm (inset side length) 73.5 mm (L) 6 69.5 mm (W) 6 5 mm (inset side length) (Ground: 130 mm 6 130 mm) 4.85 cm square patch 6 8 15.32 cm (L) 6 12.2 cm (W) Cu-Sn plated nylon (50.01 O/ sq) patch and EBG materials, felt substrate (1.1 mm) Antenna: 55 mm 6 55 mm EBG: 120 mm 6 120 mm Size
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Antenna type Log-periodic folded dipole array (Visser and Reniers 2007) Multi-resonant folded dipole (Roh et al. 2010) Equiangular spiral (Kennedy et al. 2007) Truncated corner microstrip patch (Hertleer et al. 2009) Microstrip patch (Hertleer et al. 2008) Eight-element microstrip patch array (Kennedy et al. 2009) Complementary-8 wideband (Kennedy et al. 2009) Dual-band coplanar patch (Zhu and Langley 2009a)
Specications, applications Wider bandwidth Broadband Broadband, space suit Wider bandwidth, reghters vital sign monitoring (Proetex project) Global Positioning System (GPS) (Proetex project) Wider bandwidth, extravehicular activity space suit Broadband, extravehicular activity space suit Dual-band, wider bandwidth, good gain, SAR (specic absorption rate) reduction
1.56342 GHz, 1.58742 GHz
2.45 GHz
Ni-Cu-Ag-coated nylon (Nora1, 0.03 O/sq) patch and ground, Nomex1 Felt substrate (6.35 mm)
2.110 GHz
2.45 GHz, 5 GHz
Figure 15. Textile coils for ECG monitoring suits: (a) appliqued coils of stainless steel yarn for inductive links (Catrysse et al. 2004) and (b) embroidered transponder antenna made with a composite yarn of stainless steel yarns and a copper core (Coosemans et al. 2006).
multi-resonant folded dipole (MRFD) antenna for FM signal reception. The antenna was produced using CNC embroidering of MCEY (Figure 7(b) and Figure 19). As the human body has very high relative permittivity, the presence of a human body close to
an antenna reduces the eciency of the antenna and lowers the resonance frequency, where both eects depend on the distance between the antenna and the body. Furthermore, the movement of the body deforms the spatial geometry of the body-worn antenna
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Figure 17. Embroidered dual multi-turn loop RFID antennas for WBAN: (a) transmitting antenna with a 4turn outer loop and 6-turn inner loop with 10 mm line intervals and (b) receiving antenna with a 6-turn outer loop and 10-turn inner loop with 1 mm line intervals (Roh 2010).
Figure 16. Textile transponder antenna (13.56 MHz) composed of three dierent layers, where a coil made of non-insulated conductive warp and weft of Au/Ag-coated polyamide yarns are only in contact at the corners to form multi-turn loops by TITV and Fraunhofer IZM (Reichl et al. 2006).
and aects the performance of the antenna as well. Thus, to compensate for the human body eect, a wearable embroidered FM antenna should be designed to be well matched over a wider frequency band than the FM broadcast band (about 87 to 130 MHz). The embroidered FM antenna of Roh et al. comprised ve individual MCEY embroidered-folded dipoles connected in parallel so that the bandwidth could be broadened via multiple resonance. The antenna was attached to a jacket, stretched from the left forearm, over the shoulder and to the right forearm. When the antenna was worn, the radiation pattern and gain were greatly inuenced by the body and arm postures. The proposed antenna provides a wide operating band of 80.5 MHz to over 130 MHz at 5 dB return loss regardless of the arm movements, satisfying the FM broadcast band (87.5 MHz to 108 MHz). In free space, the maximum gain of the MCEY FM antenna was 0.68 dBd. When the arms were moved, the antenna radiated dierent polarisation, giving a deformed toroidal radiation pattern, and the gain of this bodyworn antenna ranged from 77.08 to 715.79 dBd in the FM broadcast band regardless of the arms movement. 3.2.1.2. Bow-tie dipole antennas. Figure 20 shows an Ag-coated polyamide yarn (X-static1, Nobel Biomaterials) embroidered broadband bow-tie
Figure 18. 2.45 GHz two-element LPFDA antenna made of stainless steel yarn embroidered on a cotton fabric (Visser and Reniers 2007).
antenna developed by MegaWave Corp. (Sosnowski 2007) and a copper-coated-fabric patched bow-tie antenna by Matthews and Pettitt (2009). Based on RF performance, the most attractive method of constructing a textile-based bow-tie antenna is using conductive patches of metal-coated fabric. According to Matthews and Pettitt (2009), the copper-coatedfabric patched bow-tie antenna gave excellent results when compared to other fabrication methods such as embroidering conductive yarns or conductive printing. 3.2.1.3. Spiral dipole antennas. Kennedy et al. (2007) developed a fabric equiangular spiral antenna designed for 24 GHz operation of which wideband nature was well suited for spacesuit application (Figure 8(b)). The two arms of the spiral, made of silver-copper-nickel plated nylon fabric with a thickness of 0.06 mm and surface resistivity of 0.03 O/sq (Nora, Shieldex1 by Statex), were sewn onto a polyester cloth (thickness:
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Figure 19. MCEY embroidered MRFD antenna for FM reception: (a) design and embroidered product and (b) embroidered MRFD antenna positioned on the shoulder of a jacket with arms outstretched (Roh et al. 2010).
0.43 mm, tand: 0.070). This e-textile equiangular spiral antenna showed a similar voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) response to the conventional copper spiral arms and simulation. The wearable textile spiral antennas shown in Figure 21 were designed to work as wideband solutions from 100 MHz to 1 GHz by Matthews and Pettitt (2009). They have used dierent fabrication methods such as (a) conductive fabric patch, (b) conductive yarn embroidering, or (c) conductive paint, for producing the antennas. The conductive nylon patch spiral antenna showed the best RF performance among the three methods, where the return loss of the body-worn antenna was better than 12 dB over the frequency range of 100 MHz to 1 GHz and the gain was higher than that from simulation (maximum gain was about 73 dB at 500 MHz). The embroidered spiral antenna showed the lowest gain due to the lossyness of the material and the contact resistance between the embroidered conducting yarns. The performance of the painted antenna containing silver leaf was comparable to the conductive nylon patch, but the paint could crack with repeated exing and the high price was another drawback. 3.2.2. Patch antennas 3.2.2.1. Microstrip patch antennas. Textile microstrip patch antennas usually consist of a metal-coated fabric antenna patch bonded to an insulated dielectric substrate that has a ground plane on the opposite side of the substrate. They are simple to fabricate, easy to modify, suitable for simulation on common wave solvers, and they feature good properties. Thus, a variety of textile microstrip patch antennas has been developed for far-eld communication of smart textile systems, usually operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band.
Figure 20. Textile broadband antennas: (a) Ag-plated polyamide yarn embroidered bow-tie antenna by MegaWave Corp. (Sosnowski 2007) and (b) a coppercoated-fabric patched bow-tie antenna (Matthews and Pettitt 2009).
The Proetex project, of which the goal is to improve the safety and eciency of emergency workers by empowering them with wearable sensing and transmission systems that monitor their health, activity, position and their environment during various risky situations (Proetex 2004), has proposed a variety of textile patch antennas integrated into a reghters protective coat to transmit the reghters life signs, environment and position to a nearby base station (Hertleer and Langenhove 2007, Hertleer et al. 2008, Hertleer et al. 2009, Vallozzi et al. 2009). Figure 22 shows a wearable microstrip patch antenna, which was made of a metal-coated fabric patch, ground and nonconductive aramid fabric substrate comprising the outer shell of a re-ghters coat, designed for operating around 2.45 GHz for short-range communication (Hertleer and Langenhove 2007). Hertleer et al. (2008) reported that a rectangular ring-shaped e-textile
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Figure 21. Wearable textile spiral antennas: (a) conductive nylon patch spiral (b) embroidered conductive yarn spiral and (c) conductive paint spiral (Matthews and Pettitt 2009).
Figure 22.
Textile microstrip patch antennas (2.45 GHz) integrated into textile layers (Hertleer and Langenhove 2007).
microstrip patch antenna on a eece substrate had an eciency of more than 75%, which was comparable to conventional non-textile antennas. Several studies (Locher et al. 2006, Hertleer et al. 2009) on the eects of antenna exure on the input impedance and radiation characteristics of e-textile microstrip patch antennas reported slight detuning of the antenna elements with exure. Thus, the antennas are designed to cover a large bandwidth in order to account for shifts due to bending. Also, as the linear dimension of the patch antenna increases when the antenna is bent outward, an increase in beam width and reduction in gain was observed (Kennedy et al. 2007). 3.2.2.2. Microstrip patch antenna array. As smart antenna array systems are designed to be highly
adaptable to a dynamic communication channel, onbody antenna systems are likely to benet from the addition of antenna arrays, which can compensate for some of the deciencies occurring under exure and wrinkling of a body-worn antenna. An antenna array is basically a group of identical antennas arranged and interconnected for achieving greater gain or beam shaping. In this context, Kennedy et al. (2007, 2009) constructed an eight-element e-textile microstrip patch array (Figure 23) for the 2.45 GHz ISM frequency band to be placed on an extravehicular activity space suit. The elements are linearly polarized patch antennas, where each square patch made of a metalcoated fabric (Nora, 0.03 O/sq) measured 1.85 cm on the side and was axed to a Nomex felt (Table 3). As expected, the array showed good impedance
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Figure 23. Eight-element e-textile microstrip patch antenna array (Kennedy et al. 2009).
performance with slight wrinkling and the main beam widened with outward bending. 3.2.3. Ultra-wideband antennas Kennedy et al. (2009) also designed an ultra-wideband antenna for use above 2.1 MHz, which was named as a complementary 8-wideband e-textile antenna (Figure 24). With the self-complementary structure introduced to help with impedance matching and to generate polarisation diversity from a single element, this antenna showed acceptable wideband impedance performance from 2.1 to 10 GHz. And, as shown in Figure 24, a low-mass multiple-antenna system of six complementary-8 wideband antenna elements was placed around the periphery of an extravehicular activity (EVA) space suit, where pattern diversity was implemented by rotating the antenna elements. 3.2.4. Coplanar antenna As coplanar antennas have much wider bandwidth than microstrip patch antennas, Zhu and Langley (2009a) designed a wearable textile dual-band coplanar antenna covering the 2.45 GHz and the 5 GHz wireless networking band (Figure 25). The antenna was integrated with an electromagnetic band gap (EBG) substrate that has a potential advantage of reducing the backward radiation from the antenna and hence reducing the radiation absorbed by the body, rendering the antenna tolerant to human body eects. This antenna consisted of an inner patch surrounded by a parasitic rectangular ring element, surrounded by the normal ground of coplanar feed line (55 mm 6 55 mm), and an EBG ground plane (120 mm 6 120 mm). The conducting material used was a copper- and tin-plated nylon fabric, ZeltTM, which was attached to a thin felt of 1.1 mm. The overall thickness of the antenna was 4.48 mm. The resulting antenna showed broader operating bandwidth, comparable gain and reduced radiation
Figure 24. Six complementary-8 e-textile antennas positioned around an EVA suit (Kennedy et al. 2009).
Figure 25. Dual-band coplanar textile antenna on EBG array plane (Zhu and Langley 2009a).
absorption of the body when compared to an equivalent microstrip patch antenna. But under bending condition, the resonance frequency dropped by 2%. 4. Conclusions Wearable textile antennas are of great interest, as the demand for wireless on-body and o-body
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Chung, G., 2009. Digital garment for data communication using digital yarn. Korean-German Smart Textile Symposium, 12 September 2009 Seoul: KOFOTI & KITECH, 60. Costs Technical Services, 2007. All about sewing threads, Bulletin Post [online]. Available from: http://www.coats sewingsolutions.com/sewingsolutions/download/Bulletin 07_AllAboutThreads.pdf [Accessed 18 June 2010]. Coosemans, J., Hermans, B., and Puers, R., 2006. Integrating wireless ECG monitoring in textiles. Sensors and Actuators A Physics, 130131, 4853. Dobbins, J.A., et al., 2006. Fabric equiangular spiral antenna. Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium, 914 July 2006 Albuquerque, New Mexico: IEEE, 914. Ghosh, T.K., Dhawan, A., and Huth, J.F., 2006. Formation of electical circuits in textile substrates. In: Mattila, H.R., ed. Intelligent textiles and clothing. Cambridge, UK: Woodhead, 239246. Gimpel, S., et al., 2004. Textile-based electronic substrate technology. Journal of Industrial Textiles, 33 (3), 179189. Hertleer, C. and Langenhove, L., 2007. A textile antenna for re ghter garments. AUTEX (Association of Universities for Textiles) 2007 Conference: From Emerging Innovations to Global Business, 2628 June 2007 Tampere, Finland [CDROM], Autex. Hertleer, C., et al., 2008. The use of textile materials to design wearable microstrip patch antennas. Textile Research Journal, 78 (8), 651658. Hertleer, C., et al., 2009. A textile antenna for o-body communication integrated into protective clothing for reghters. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, 57 (41), 919925. Hum, A.P.J., 2001. Fabric area network a new wireless communications infrastructure to enable ubiquitous networking and sensing on intelligent clothing. Computer Networks, 35, 391399. Jung, S., et al., 2003. Enabling technologies for disappearing electronics in smart textiles. International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC03), 913 February 2003 San Francisco: IEEE, 386387. Kallmayer, C., et al., 2003. New Assembly of Technologies for Textile Transponder Systems. Proceedings of the 53rd Electronic Component and Technology Conference, 3030 May 2003 New Orleans: IEEE, 1123 1126. Kellomaki, T., Heikkinen, M., and Kivikosh, M., 2006. Wearable antennas for FM reception. First European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP 2006), 610 November 2006 Nice, France: ESA [CDROM]. Kennedy, et al., 2007. Potential space application for bodycentric wireless and e-textile antennas. Seminar on Antennas and Propagation for Body-Centric Wireless Communications, 24 April 2007 London: IET, 7783. Kennedy, T.F., et al., 2009. Body-worn e-textile antennas: the good, the low-mass, and the conformal. IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, 57 (4), 910918. Kirstein, T., 2005. Smart clothing. In: Lecture of Wearable Systems II. Zurich: Wearable Computing Lab, ETH. Linz, T., 2009. New integration technologies for electronics in textiles. Korean-German Smart Textile Symposium, 12 September 2009 Seoul: KOFOTI & KITECH, 2753. Linz, T., Kallmayer, C., and Aschenbrenner, R., 2005. Embroidering electrical interconnects with conductive yarn for the integration of exible electronic modules into fabric. Ninth International Symposium on Wearable Computers, 1821 October 2005, Osaka: IEEE, 8689.
communications for smart clothing systems increases. As everyday clothing provides sucient area to place antennas, which usually require relatively large space, and textile antennas ensure wearing comfort owing to their exibility and lightness, the potential applications of textile antennas are diverse, ranging from medical applications to protective, military and space applications. A variety of wearable textile antennas were reviewed in this article, including their fabrication methods, antenna types, and application elds, in order to provide background information and application ideas for designing wearable textile antennas. Owing to the high conductivity of metals, various MCYs and fabrics are used to manufacture RF engineering textiles. For linear antenna circuits, CNC embroidering of MCYs is a suitable construction method, because this method oers prompt and precise circuit design variability, a simple and eco-friendly process as well as reasonable antenna performance. To construct patch antennas, metal-coated fabrics are the most suitable for both the ground plane as well as the antenna patch. As the characteristics of wearable antennas are greatly aected by human proximity and motion, broadband antennas and array antennas are preferred to compensate for the impedance mismatch caused by the presence of human body losses and movements. For inductively coupled near-eld communication, which can provide internal and personal space communication in smart clothing, a variety of woven or embroidered multiturn loop antennas were suggested for WBAN application. For far-eld communication in smart clothing, many dierent types of broadband textile antennas were developed to compensate for the detuning caused by the human body, such as embroidered folded dipole array antennas, metalcoated fabric-patched bowtie and spiral dipole antennas, a microstrip patch antenna array and a coplanar antenna made of metal-coated fabric patch and ground plane. Especially, textile antenna arrays, both of linear and planar antennas, are suggested as a solution to the problems dened as the limitations of single bodyworn textile antennas. References
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This article was downloaded by: [University of Toronto Libraries] On: 06 July 2011, At: 09:46 Publisher: Taylor

International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education