Flexible textile antenna array

Abstract

Flexible conductive textile material can make it possible to design flexible antennas that are wearable and nonintrusive to the user. It is this simplicity to the user that makes them suitable for applications such as health-monitoring systems. With the goal in mind of designing a wearable flexible antenna, a two element textile antenna array is designed to work at 2.45 GHz frequency. CST Microwave Studio has been used to verify the design. Various fabrication techniques were used. To further decrease the size of the antenna, a slot loaded design is proposed. In addition to the antenna, a connector design which will provide a reliable physically strong connection is proposed in this paper. For the cutting of the fabric a craft cutting machine was used. This machine has an accuracy of 0.05 mm, which is sufficient for the prototype manufacturing. The connector design is done by 3D printing method.