A Textile Antenna for Off-Body Communication Integrated Into Protective Clothing for Firefighters

The introduction of intelligent textile systems to increase the wearer's level of protection has exposed the necessity of wearable communication tools and has led to research in textile antennas. However, most textile fabrics are quite thin (0.5 mm), making it challenging for antenna designers...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on antennas and propagation Vol. 57; no. 4; pp. 919 - 925
Main Authors Hertleer, C., Rogier, H., Vallozzi, L., Van Langenhove, L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York IEEE 01.04.2009
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Antennas
Bandwidth
Biological materials
Fabrics
Firefighters
Fires
Flexible manufacturing systems
Foams
Garments
Intelligent systems
Protection
Protective
Protective clothing
Textile antenna
Textile industry
Textiles
Water
wearable textile system
wireless off-body communication
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Summary:The introduction of intelligent textile systems to increase the wearer's level of protection has exposed the necessity of wearable communication tools and has led to research in textile antennas. However, most textile fabrics are quite thin (0.5 mm), making it challenging for antenna designers to provide an antenna which operates adequately and resiliently in the 2.4-2.4835-GHz industrial-scientific-medical bandwidth. Flexible pad foam is commonly available in protective clothing and overcomes these constraints by providing a uniform, stable, and sufficient thickness. Moreover, its cellular structure and properties, such as flame retardance and water repellence, make it an excellent substrate material for the integration of antennas into protective garments. In this paper, we describe the design, manufacture, and performance of the first textile planar antenna to be implemented on flexible protective foam, suitable for firefighter garments. We employed shock absorbing foam with a thickness of 3.94 mm and achieved a nearly circularly polarized antenna with a bandwidth of more than 180 MHz even when the antenna was compressed or bent. These outstanding substrate and antenna characteristics result in an antenna that is highly appropriate for garment integration.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0018-926X
1558-2221
DOI:10.1109/TAP.2009.2014574