Wearable tri-band SIW based antenna on

leather substrate
B. Mandal✉ and S.K. Parui l
L
d
A compact substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) based wearable tri- s
band leather antenna, designed for optimal on-body performance in
l1 l2
the 2.4 GHz (ISM), 3.51 GHz (WiMAX) and 4.69 GHz (Military
application) bands is proposed. By using brass eyelets and a combi- w1 w2
nation of conducting and non-conductive leather materials, a substrate
w
integrated waveguide cavity with a ground plane is realised. The
a b
antenna is very compact, flexible and directs radiation away from the
wearer. Additional miniaturisation is achieved by introducing slits.
The free space performance in the bands is found satisfactory with Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of patch antenna, and fabricated antenna
measured impedance bandwidths of 11, 7 and 5%, maximal measured a Schematic diagram
free-space gains of 1.1, 0.9 and 2.1 dBi, and efficiencies of 71.3%, b Fabricated antenna
68.2% and 76.5% achieved for the proposed antenna.
Table 1: Dimensions of tri-band antenna
Parameters W L l1 l2 w1 w2 S d l
Introduction: The popularity of wearable antennas in recent years has Values (mm) 80 80 11.5 10.5 4 1.5 4 8.06 65.81
been witnessed worldwide. Textile materials offering flexibility and
the use of a planar structure by designers help to load garments with Fabrication process: With adhesive sheets, two conductive copper
such antennas. GPS, WLAN and Bluetooth application based wearable sheets are glued onto a leather substrate taking special care of the align-
antennas have already been reported in literature [1, 2]. The comfort ment associated with different layers. Next, via holes with proper dia-
related to wearing these antennas is of prime concern. However, such meter and longitudinal spacing are achieved by making necessary
comfort is not provided at all by the traditional technology based on perforations. Lastly, the holes are fitted with eyelets ultimately leading
rigid substrates. Moreover, the performance characteristics of metal to a SIW based leather antenna.
planes and insulators based antennas are found to be similar to those The fabricated prototype of the antenna is shown in Fig. 1b. The
of specially designed fabric based antennas [3–5]. To reduce the com- experimental results concerning return loss depict slight deviation in fre-
plexity and cost of integration, structures facilitating multi roles are quency as compared with the simulated one. This discrepancy is attrib-
becoming popular these days. Multi-band antennas are a solution to uted to the different factors such as presence of an air gap between the
this trend as they tend to increase the flexibility and functionality of substrate and the metal sheet owing to the application of glue, wrinkle
devices [6, 7]. The design of multiband antennas for multiple appli- effects of the substrate, etc.
cation systems is challenging. However, they are found to provide effec-
tive solutions to multiple applications by providing the right
0
performance at necessary frequency bands. Substrate integrated wave-
guide (SIW) based textile wearable antennas have already been pro- –5
posed [8, 9]. These antennas exhibit multi-band features capable of –10
producing good impedance matching, generate high gain, satisfactory –15
S11, dB

radiation performance and have low influence on the human body –20
with robust behaviour. The SIW technology facilitates the integration
–25
into a single substrate of various components as well as antennas.
Hence, in an entire system, the number of transitions between elements –30
–35 simulated
is limited and a reduction of losses is guaranteed [10]. Furthermore, by measured
adopting SIW technology, we increase the efficiency and minimise the –40
physical dimensions of the complete system. The choice of the substrate 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0
frequency, GHz
integrated waveguide technology for the implementation of the pro-
posed antenna is motivated by the simple and low-cost fabrication
Fig. 2 Matching characteristics of proposed antenna
process and by its potential to easily realise multilayer structures.
In this Letter, we propose for the first time a body wearable SIW
300 200
input impedance (re,im), W

based tri-band antenna fabricated on leather substrate. The obvious 150

choice of leather is justified owing to its very wide applications such imaginary part
200 100
phase, deg

real part
as leather-made shoes, jackets, belts, gloves etc. The SIW structure is 50
chosen as it offers several advantages such as a simple cost-effective 100 0
–50
fabrication process, unwanted surface waves suppression, high 0 –100
front-to-back ratio, lower sensitivity for on-body operation, etc. –150
Moreover, passive and active components can easily be integrated –100
1 2 3 4 5
–200
1 2 3 4 5
onto the antenna resulting in perfect realisation of complete systems frequency, GHz frequency, GHz
on a wearable carrier. The proposed tri-band antenna is expected to a b
serve different frequency bands. All the above unique properties are
desirable features for conformal RF applications. Fig. 3 Impedance variation and phase variation against frequency of pro-
posed antenna
a Impedance variation
Antenna design: The configuration of the proposed SIW based equilat- b Phase variation
eral triangular antenna with a co-axial probe feed is shown in Fig. 1a.
The array of metallic vias along two sides makes them PEC walls Experimental verification of antenna performance: Measurement of
while the other side is a PMC wall. The antenna is designed on a return loss was carried out and an anechoic chamber was employed
2 mm-thick (h) leather substrate (εr = 2.72, loss tangent tanδ = 0.02) for radiation pattern and gain measurement. Fig. 2 depicts the simulated
with the side length (s) of the equilateral triangle being 56 mm. The and measured reflection coefficients of the antenna. More than 10 dB
overall dimensions of the antenna are 80 (L) × 80 (W ) × 2(h) mm3. return loss was witnessed in the complete ISM, WiMAX and military
The diameter of each via is d = 4 mm with centre-to-centre gap distance bands with resonance occurring at 2.4, 3.51 and 4.69 GHz, respectively,
s = 8.06 mm. All the dimensions of proposed antenna are shown in depicting corresponding bandwidths of 60, 58 and 101 MHz. Fig. 3a
Table 1. The coax probe is matched to 50 Ω and placed at an optimised represents the antenna input impedance variation with frequency
offset position from the centre of the triangle to generate the fundamen- while Fig. 3b represents phase shift against frequency arising out of
tal TE101 mode and other higher modes as well as suppress reflection impedance mismatch. The real part associated with the input impedance
inducing spurious beams. of the antenna is found to be 48.74 Ω at 2.39 GHz, 49.45 Ω at 3.51 GHz

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 1st October 2015 Vol. 51 No. 20 pp. 1563–1564

and 44.55 Ω at 4.69 GHz whereas the imaginary part for the frequencies
is nearly 0 Ω. The phase shift of the antenna is observed to be close to
almost 0° at the corresponding resonating frequencies.
0 0
–10
–10
–20
the simulated results. The measured gain of the antenna at the broadside
direction was found to be 1.1, 0.9 and 2.1 dBi at the frequencies of 2.4,
3.51 and 4.69 GHz with the corresponding measured front-to-back ratio
being 18.89, 12.09 and 17.82 dB. The antenna efficiency achieved at the
desired frequencies is 71.3, 68.2 and 76.5%. The plot of surface current
distributions in Fig. 5 for the tri-band antenna at different desired
frequencies of 2.4, 3.51 and 4.69 GHz reveals the role of each slit on

gain, dB
gain, dB

–20 –30 the antenna’s performance. It is concluded that the slit with the larger
co-pol (simulated) co-pol (simulated)
co-pol (measured)
–40 co-pol (measured)
length causes the lowest resonant frequency, the other slit produces a
–30
X-pol (simulated) –50 X-pol (simulated)
X-pol (measured)
second resonant frequency and the two successive sides of the slits
X-pol (measured)
–40
–180 –120 –60 0 60 120 180
–60
–180 –120 –60 0 60 120 180
collectively generate the third resonance frequency.
theta theta
a b Conclusion: A tri-band SIW leather antenna has been designed, fabri-
0 0 cated and its performance characteristics studied extensively. The
–10 proposed antenna covers the ISM, WiFi (2.4–2.484 GHz), WiMAX
–10
–20 (2.5–2.6/3.4–3.6 GHz) and Military applications (4.4–4.9 GHz.)
gain, dB

gain, dB

–20 –30 bands. The proposed antenna structure is well suited for various
co-pol (simulated) –40
co-pol (simulated)
co-pol (measured)
wearable wireless communication devices owing to its low backward
–30 co-pol (measured)
X-pol (simulated) –50 X-pol (simulated)
X-pol (measured)
radiation, small size and simple design topology. Moreover, the effect
X-pol (measured)
–40
–180 –120 –60 0 60 120 180
–60
–180 –120 –60 0 60 120 180
of the SIW antenna on the human body is not significant owing to the
theta theta high front-to-back ratio, flexibility with low cost, light weight and
c d other attractive features which make it a suitable for on-body use.
0 0

–10 –10 Acknowledgments: The authors acknowledge necessary support for this
–20 research work provided at the Indian Institute Engineering Science and
gain, dB
gain, dB

–20
–30 co-pol (simulated)
Technology (IIEST), Shibpur, India.
–30 co-pol (simulated) co-pol (measured)
co-pol (measured) –40 X-pol (simulated)
X-pol (simulated)
–40 –50 X-pol (measured)
X-pol (measured) © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015
–50 –60
–180 –120 –60 0 60 120 180 –180 –120 –60 0 60 120 180 Submitted: 25 July 2015 E-first: 17 September 2015
theta theta
doi: 10.1049/el.2015.2559
e f One or more of the Figures in this Letter are available in colour online.
Fig. 4 Radiation patterns of multiband antenna: Figs. 4a, c, e E-plane w = 00; B. Mandal and S.K. Parui (Depatment of Electronics and
Figs. 4b, d, f H-plane w = 900 Telecommunication Engineering, Indian Institute Engineering Science
a 2.4 GHz and Technology, Shibpur, Howrah, India)
b 2.4 GHz ✉ E-mail: bappaditya.kgec@gmail.com
c 3.51 GHz
d 3.51 GHz
e 4.69 GHz References
f 4.69 GHz
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ELECTRONICS LETTERS 1st October 2015 Vol. 51 No. 20 pp. 1563–1564