Wearable Textile Antenna on Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) for WLAN Applications

Abstract

This paper presents a new dual band wearable textile antenna for on body application, at 2.4 GHz and 5.2 GHz. The performance of the antenna is described with the integration of an electromagnetic band gap (EBG) structure. The antenna and EBG structure aremade of jeans material which has a dielectric constant of 1.7, with the thickness of 1.2 mm and 0.025 loss tangent. The conductive component used in this paper is copper tape with thickness of 0.02 mm. The EBG array consists of 6 elements which are arranged in circular pattern surrounding the antenna patch. The effect of placing the EBG below the conventional antenna is studied and compared with the performance of the antenna alone. The gains of the antenna are improved by 63.7% and 121.4% at 2.4 GHz and 5.2 GHz respectivelyafter integrating the EBG structure. At least 10 dB of backward radiation is reduced with the presence of the EBG structure. The integration of EBG with the conventional antenna has improved the antenna performance. The simulated and measured return loss, together with E-plane and H-plane polar pattern are presented in this paper for both conditions