A textile patch antenna is an attractive package for wearable applications as it offers flexibility, less weight, easy integration into the garment and better comfort to the wearer. When it comes to wearability, above all, comfort comes ahead of the rest of the properties. The air permeability and the water vapor permeability of textiles are linked to the thermophysiological comfort of the wearer as they help to improve the breathability of textiles. This paper includes the construction of a breathable textile rectangular ring microstrip patch antenna with improved water vapor permeability. A selection of high air permeable conductive fabrics and 3-dimensional knitted spacer dielectric substrates was made to ensure better water vapor permeability of the breathable textile rectangular ring microstrip patch antenna. To further improve the water vapor permeability of the breathable textile rectangular ring microstrip patch antenna, a novel approach of inserting a large number of small-sized holes of 1 mm diameter in the conductive layers (the patch and the ground plane) of the antenna was adopted. Besides this, the insertion of a large number of small-sized holes improved the flexibility of the rectangular ring microstrip patch antenna. The result was a breathable perforated (with small-sized holes) textile rectangular ring microstrip patch antenna with the water vapor permeability as high as 5296.70 g/m2 per day, an air permeability as high as 510 mm/s, and with radiation gains being 4.2 dBi and 5.4 dBi in the E-plane and H-plane, respectively. The antenna was designed to resonate for the Industrial, Scientific and Medical band at a specific 2.45 GHz frequency.
When discussing textile antenna and its comfortable use, the effect of air permeability and atmospheric moisture are eminent factors which have direct influence on textile antenna transmission characteristics and comfort of the wearer when used practically. The rate of airflow under certain air pressure passing through any surface is termed as air permeability of that surface and amount of moisture regained by a material when exposed to varying environmental humidity ranges compared to dry weight of that material is its moisture regain. Fleece and spacer fabrics were selected each having different air permeability and moisture regain values but both fabrics constitute polyethylene terephthalate - PET. Microstrip patch antennas that resonate at 2.45GHz were constructed utilizing both textile fabrics. Spacer fabric has high air permeability and low moisture regain compared to fleece fabric. Spacer fabric is a knitted 3-dimensional structured fabric whereas fleece is nonwoven in structure. FlecTron® is utilized as the conductive part of the microstrip patch antenna. Antenna made off spacer fabric showed better transmission characteristics and are least altered due to change in humidity compared to antenna made off fleece fabric. In this research, we conclude that the selected textile spacer fabric, with its high air permeability and low moisture regain, is the most favourable textile material in the construction of textile antennas.
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