Recent Advances in Wearable Antenna Technologies: A Review (original) (raw)
Related papers
2019
Wearable antennas have gained much attention in recent years due to their attractive features and possibilities in enabling lightweight, flexible, low cost, and portable wireless communication and sensing. Such antennas need to be conformal when used on different parts of the human body, thus need to be implemented using flexible materials and designed in a low profile structure. Ultimately, these antennas need to be capable of operating with minimum degradation in proximity to the human body. Such requirements render the design of wearable antennas challenging, especially when considering aspects such as their size compactness, effects of structural deformation and coupling to the body, and fabrication complexity and accuracy. Despite slight variations in severity according to applications, most of these issues exist in the context of body-worn implementation. This review aims to present different challenges and issues in designing wearable antennas, their material selection, and f...
Micromachines, 2020
The demand for wearable technologies has grown tremendously in recent years. Wearable antennas are used for various applications, in many cases within the context of wireless body area networks (WBAN). In WBAN, the presence of the human body poses a significant challenge to the wearable antennas. Specifically, such requirements are required to be considered on a priority basis in the wearable antennas, such as structural deformation, precision, and accuracy in fabrication methods and their size. Various researchers are active in this field and, accordingly, some significant progress has been achieved recently. This article attempts to critically review the wearable antennas especially in light of new materials and fabrication methods, and novel designs, such as miniaturized button antennas and miniaturized single and multi-band antennas, and their unique smart applications in WBAN. Finally, the conclusion has been drawn with respect to some future directions.
Fabrication techniques for wearable antennas
This paper investigates the use of different techniques and conductive materials for the fabrication of textile patch antennas. Experimental results referring to the use of a conductive thread, an adhesive copper tape and an adhesive conductive non-woven fabric are reported and discussed. Reported results demonstrate the suitability of the proposed prototypes to be used for wearable applications.
Wearable Textile Patch Antenna: Challenges and Future Directions
IEEE Access, 2022
Wearable antennas have grown in popularity in recent years as a result of their appealing features and prospects to actualize lightweight, compact, low-cost and adaptable wireless communications and surroundings. These antennas have to be conformal and made of lightweight materials in a low-profile arrangement when attached to various parts of the human body. Near-body operation of these antennas should be possible without degradation. When these characteristics are taken into account, the layout of wearable antennas become challenging, especially when textile substrates are investigated, high conductivity materials are used during manufacturing procedures and body binding scenarios have an impact on the design's performance. Several of these issues arise in the context of body-worn deployment, despite modest changes in magnitude between implementations. This paper examines the multiple issues and obstacles encountered in the construction of wearable antennas as well as the range of materials used, and the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) effects employed as well as the bending scheme. An overview of the innovative features and their separate approaches to addressing the difficulties lately raised by work in this field conducted by the scientific community is provided as an appendix.
Recent Advancements in Modern Antenna Design for Wearable Devices
Aug-Sept 2023
The rapid growth of wearable technologies within wireless body area networks (WBANs) has increased the demand for advanced wearable antennas. The human body's presence creates significant challenges for these antennas since it behaves differently as a wave propagation medium. It is necessary to prioritize specific requirements for antenna design, such as size, frequency, efficiency, wideband and multiband operation, because of body interaction and signal attenuation. The development of novel methodologies, the use of state-of-the-art fabrication methods, and the advancement of antenna designs have been the main areas of attention for researchers in this field in recent years. This research investigates contemporary advancements in wearable antennas, particularly emphasizing utilizing recent materials, fabrication processes, and new techniques. It also highlights the unique applicability of these antennas in advanced WBAN systems.
Flexible Wearable Antennas for Body Area Network
Regular Issue, 2020
In recent years, wearable antenna design has grossed research interest amongst academicians and researchers due to its versatile application in body area networks for transmitting/receiving signals in sufficiently large areassuch as ICU, trauma centers in hospitals for biomedical applications at ISM (2.45 GHz) frequency range. A wearable antenna is highly flexible in nature making it popular and demanding. What makes it even more suitable for biomedical applications is its simple design methodology and ease of integrationonpatient's dress/clothes for antenna placement in wireless communication. This paper presents a thorough investigation of various antennadesign methodologies to design a flexible wearable antenna that can be mounted on textile material for body-centric wireless communication. The traditional antenna design uses non-flexible substrate materials (such as FR-4, RT duriod, foam, etc..) having medium to high dielectric constant. This results in generation of surface wave losses which reduces antenna transmission capabilities. Flexible wearable antennas, on the contrary, uses ordinary textile materials used as a substrate whose dielectric constant is very low thereby providingreduced surface wave losses. As wearable antennas are mounted on textile fabrics it is possible to use these antennas to implant them on patients' bodies(inside/outside on the clothes) for transmitting the patients' body parameters (such as body temperate, heart rate, etc..) measured using various sensors/transducers. In this paper,a thorough review of different types of substrate materialsused for designing flexible wearable antennas is done.
—Utilization of wearable textile materials for the development of microstrip antenna segment has been rapid due to the recent miniaturization of wireless devices. A wearable antenna is meant to be a part of the clothing used for communication purposes, which includes tracking and navigation, mobile computing and public safety. This paper describes design and development of four rectangular patch antennas employing different varieties of cotton and polyester clothing for on-body wireless communications in the 2.45 GHz WLAN band. The impedance and radiation characteristics are determined experimentally when the antennas are kept in flat position. The performance deterioration of a wearable antenna is analyzed under bent conditions too to check compatibility with wearable applications. Results demonstrate the suitability of these patch antennas for on-body wireless communications .
Textile antennas for on-body communications: techniques and properties
IET Seminar Digests, 2007
Due to the increased demand on multi-frequency and multi-function antenna to be utilised in smart clothing and future consumer-centric communication technologies, fabric and textile antenna designs have received a vast amount of attention in the last few years. The fabrication techniques and materials used in designing textile antennas play a significant role in defining and determining the overall performance. This paper investigates different methods of fabrications applying various material types to analyse the effect those parameters have on a rectangular microstrip patch antenna to be deployed in general wearable applications providing cost-effectiveness, ease of system integration and immunity to performance degradation when placed ont he body.
A Review of Flexible Wearable Antenna Sensors: Design, Fabrication Methods, and Applications
Materials
This review paper summarizes various approaches developed in the literature for antenna sensors with an emphasis on flexible solutions. The survey helps to recognize the limitations and advantages of this technology. Furthermore, it offers an overview of the main points for the development and design of flexible antenna sensors from the selection of the materials to the framing of the antenna including the different scenario applications. With regard to wearable antenna sensors deployment, a review of the textile materials that have been employed is also presented. Several examples related to human body applications of flexible antenna sensors such as the detection of NaCl and sugar solutions, blood and bodily variables such as temperature, strain, and finger postures are also presented. Future investigation directions and research challenges are proposed.