Bend Profiling of Textile Antenna for Body Centric

Wireless Communication
S. Shahid1, M. Rizwan1, M.A.B. Abbasi1, M.A. Tarar1, S.M. Abbas2
1

Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS),
National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan

Department of Electrical Engineering, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan

{saleem.shahid, 11mseemrizwan, 11mseemabbasi, munir.tarar}@seecs.edu.pk, muzahir_abbas@comsats.edu.pk

Abstract Body-centric wireless communication (BCWC) is

assumed as core technology for healthcare and rescue
applications which always needs a flexible and bendable antenna
for near the body propagation. Multiple technologies terminated
on a single antenna with suitable radiation and gain
characteristics are the concern of antenna designers from few
decades. A wide band antenna, covering variety of frequency
bands used for BCWC, is realized and presented. Human body
effects on antenna and bend profiling of antenna is analyzed. In
addition to flexibility and bending characteristics, easy
integration in human clothing is also considered. Copper tape is
used as conductive part of the antenna while 1mm thin blue jean
is used as dielectric substrate, with relative permittivity of 1.68
and loss tangent 0.01. Various meandering techniques were
investigated to enhance the gain and bandwidth of the antenna
without effecting antenna performance in near body bent
conditions. Parametric analysis confirms the antenna resonance
at 2.45GHz with impedance bandwidth of 2.15GHz ranging from
0.8 to 2.95GHz and peak gain up to 4.2dB. The fabricated
antenna is tested using Agilent Vector Network Analyzer.
Simulated and measured results, of this novel recto-circular
antenna showed good agreement proving the propose antenna as
a suitable candidate for near body applications.
Index TermsBody-centric wireless communication, Wide
band, Flexible antenna, Recto-circular, Antenna bending

I.

INTRODUCTION

Antenna is always recognized as an important component

in wireless communication systems. Large bandwidth and
compact size of an antenna are important for power efficient
broadband wireless communication as it is replacing cables
and providing flexibility in todays user demands. BCWC is
emerging as front line technology to fully avail the benefits of
the wireless communication in medical and military
applications. It combines wireless body area networks
(WBAN), wireless body sensor networks (WBSN) and
wireless personal area networks (WPAN), due to which it is
considered as an important part of fourth generation personal
communication systems (PCS) [1]. A WBSN uses sensor or
electronic devices which are implanted inside or mounted on
the human body for different applications. WBAN is defined
by IEEE 802.15.4 as a communication standard in which
devices can be integrated on or around the human body for
user benefit [2]. It has many applications such as personal

video and audio devices, safety, sports, fitness monitoring

where antenna subsystems are placed close to human for near
the body communication [3]. M.M. Khan et. al has presented
a dual band power efficient antenna on FR4 epoxy substrate
[4] whereas P.S. Hall et. al has modeled variety of
narrowband antennas for on-body communication [5-6]. A
dual band button antenna for WLAN (2.45 and 5.2GHz)
applications was presented by J. Batchelor et. al [7]. A.
Alomainy et. al presented various wearable antennas
operating at 2.4GHz (ISM band) for on-body communications
[8-10]. To the best of authors knowledge, a wideband flexible
antenna needs to be designed which covers almost all the near
body communication frequencies, also realizing the bend
profiling of the antenna.
A wideband flexible substrate antenna is presented in this
paper. The proposed antenna covers 800-900MHz band for
on-body to on-body communication and 1.8GHz, 2.1GHz and
2.45GHz bands for on-body to off-body communication. The
bend profiling of the antenna is also understood for various
bent angles in one plane along transmission line. Omni
directional radiation patterns have been achieved at 800MHz
and relatively directional patterns at higher frequency, which
is required for power efficient BCWC [4]. Rest of the paper is
organized as; design and modeling of human body phantom
and antenna is explained in Section II. Simulated and
measured results and their comparison are presented in
Section III while Section IV concludes the paper.

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(a)

(b)

Fig. 1. Antenna Hardware (a) Dimensions (b) Prototype

II.

PROPOSED ANTENNA DESIGN

The antenna design and its dimensions are shown in Fig.

1(a) whereas antenna prototype is shown in Fig. 1(b).
Proposed antenna is printed on blue jeans substrate with
relative permittivity (r) 1.68 and loss tangent (tan) 0.01
having dimensions 80x80mm2 and thickness of 1mm. Copper
tape is used as radiating sheet to maintain the flexibility of the
conformal antenna.
A. Phantom Modeling
The antenna needs to be designed in near body
environment for practical integration in BCWC systems. The
human body phantom was designed in HFSS (High Frequency
Structure Simulator) to carry out simulations in near-body
environment. The average widths of skin, muscle and fats are
considered while creating a model phantom for antenna
simulation as designed in authors previous work [1]. The
young male body model with antenna mounted at average
distance of 5mm is shown in Fig. 2. The antenna and human
body separation has no significant effect on the performance
of antenna.

Symmetry is maintained while uniting circular patch with

a rectangular radiator [11-13], to provide equivalent radiating
edges. Wide band resonance is achieved but significant
frequency shifts has been witnessed antenna is bend at 30o and
60o angles. Here, it is important to mention that, by bending
authors means the restructuring of antenna in any one plane.
The return loss characteristics of first design phase are shown
in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. Simulated S11 for first design phase of the proposed antenna

The crescent shape slot of radius 20.84mm and width of

1.8mm is subtracted from patch to enhance the bandwidth and
get the improved radiation patterns [12]. The frequency
shifting at bending angles is still there but desired frequency
band is realized in flat position. Return loss characteristics of
the second design phase are shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 2. Human phantom for near-body analysis

B. Antenna Modeling
Different antenna modeling phases are shown in Fig. 3.
Antenna is designed in near body environment along with
performance analysis at flat, 30o and 60o bend angles. The
dimensions of transmission line are kept as 1.2x17.1mm2 for
50 impedance matching as show in Fig. 1(a) and Fig. 3. The
design is created by combining rectangular and circular
patches with rectangular dimensions 56x56mm2 and circular
radius 25mm [11-13]. Using rectangular patch, benefits of
radiation are acquired from radiating edges while nonradiating edges do not play any significant role. Circular patch
is introduced to convert non-radiating edges of rectangular
patch to radiating edges [8]. Partial grounding technique was
also used for bandwidth enhancement but back lobes in
radiation patterns were also mitigated by applying different
meandering techniques [12].

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 3. Antenna design phases

(d)

Fig. 5. Simulated S11 for second design phase of the proposed antenna

The quad-circular and semi-circular slots are introduced to

create two virtual feed lines for upper and left part of the
patch to increase current flow and enhance the bandwidth [89]. By the injection of virtual feeds, the radiating edges are
decreased but it helps to provide extra current intensity to the
upper part of the patch [13] whereas rectangular slit of
dimensions 1.2x18.9mm2 is introduced for current blockage
and to create extra radiating edges on vertical sides of the
patch [7-10]. The frequency shift at 30o bend angle is avoided
using these modifications in design. Return loss
characteristics of third design phase are shown in Fig. 6.
The antenna is placed at average clothing thickness of 5mm
from the body. The detuning in the performance of the
antenna usually occurs when placed closed to the human
body. This was avoided by using various meandering
techniques but due to small size of the antenna, detuning is

1745

more significant due to which frequency band is slightly

shifted when antenna is in bent condition. The decrease in
return loss is also due to the influence of human body tissues
on the antenna [15].

bandwidth with averaged return loss of -15 dB whereas 60o

angle of bending have a comparatively smaller impedance
bandwidth along with the return loss above -10dB at some
particular frequencies near 1GHz. However, in all these
scenarios, the antenna performance is acceptable.

Fig. 6. Simulated S11 for third design phase of the proposed antenna

A thin slot of dimensions 1.12x17mm2 is subtracted near

the transmission line to tune the center frequency at 2.45GHz
[9, 11-12]. The return loss of final design phase is shown in
Fig. 7. At 2.44GHz S11 is -44dB in flat position whereas it is 33dB at 30o bend angle and -36dB at 60o bend angle with
slight frequency shift.

Fig. 7. Simulated S11 for final design of the proposed antenna

III.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A. Reflection Coefficient (S11)

The designed antenna is fabricated and measured for flat
position, 30o and 60o bend angles. The antenna resonates at
2.2 to 2.5GHz for different conditions but covering all the
desired frequency bands all the time. The measured return loss
for different bent profiling of the antenna is shown in Fig. 8.
In bent scenarios, antenna is also resonating at 3.5GHz
WiMAX band.
The bending of antenna at 30o also shows a comparatively
higher resonance at frequency of 2.5GHz where the return
loss is -42.58dB. This occupies a bandwidth of 2.82GHz from
1.4GHz to 4.22GHz. At higher angles of bending, the pattern
of S-parameter is almost similar with frequency back shift. At
60 degree angle, significant resonance at 2.2GHz is achieved
with the return loss of -31.11dB which makes this pattern
slightly different from the patterns observed at 30o bending
angle. At 30o bending, antenna shows larger impedance

Fig. 8. Measured S11 of antenna for different bend angles

B. Radiation Patterns
Antenna with omnidirectional radiation patterns along the
body surface is required for better on-body radio channel
performance at lower frequencies of 800-900MHz. This is
also necessary to achieve power-efficient body-centric
wireless communication whereas directional patterns are
desired for higher frequencies around 2GHz for off-body
radio propagation. Close to omni-directional radiation patterns
are achieved at 865MHz for on-body to on-body
communication, slight defragmentation in patterns is observed
for 30o and 60o bend angles. Mostly directional patterns,
outward from body, are achieved at 1.8, 2.1 and 2.5GHz for
on-body to off-body communication, as desired. Acceptable
change in radiation patterns in observed for bending angles of
30o and 60o. Radiation patterns at different frequencies with
bending effect on antenna radiation performance are shown in
Fig. 9.
For wide band short-range on-body communication,
antennas with suitable gain of above 0dB are desired. Near the
human body, gain and radiation efficiency are frequencydependent as electromagnetic properties of body tissues vary
with frequency. When the WB antenna is placed in flat
position, the gain reduces to 1.9B in the lower frequency band
of 1.8GHz, while increases up to 4.2dB in the higher
frequency band of 2.5GHz. The antenna placement distance
(5mm) hasnt affected the effect gain for the on-body gain for
WB antennas. Moreover, when the antenna is placed at bend
angle of 30o, gain at 2.5GHz remains in the range of 2.9dB,
but at bend angle of 60o, the gain reduces to 1.88 due to
destructive interference caused by the lossy tissues of body.
Antenna behaves oppositely at frequencies of 865MHz and
1.8GHz; gain at 30o bend angle is less than gain at 60o bend
angle. The gain of antenna over the frequency of 0.7-2.9GHz
at 5mm from the body is in the range of 0.25 to 4.2dB. Results
show that as the bend angle of antenna increases, peak gain of
the proposed antenna decreases due frequency detuning by
high lossy human body tissues.

1746

0
30

-30

-4.00

-30

30

30
2.00

-4.80

-8.00
-60

0.00

-7.60

60

-60

-60

60

60

-12.00

-10.40

-2.00

-16.00

-13.20

-4.00

-90

90

-90

90

-90

90

Curve Info

Curve Info

Freq='0.865GHz' Phi='90deg'

-120

120

-150

Curve Inf o

Freq='0.865GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='0.865GHz' Phi='90deg'

Freq='0.865GHz' Phi='0deg'

-120

150

Freq='0.865GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='0.865GHz' Phi='90deg'
-120

120

-150

-180

120

-150

150

(b) 30deg

(c) 60deg
0

-30

30

-30

-1.00

150
-180

-180

(a) 0deg

-30

30

30
-5.50

-2.00

-4.50
-60

60

-9.00

-60

-8.50

-60

60

-8.00

-16.00

-11.50

-11.50

-23.00

-14.50

-90

90

Curve Info

-120

-30

Freq='1.8GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='1.8GHz' Phi='90deg'
-150

-90

120

90

-120

-90

90

-120

120

Curve Info

120
Curve Info

Freq='1.8GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='1.8GHz' Phi='90deg'

150

-150

-180

-150

150

(e) 30o

(f) 60o

-30

30

-30

0.00

30

-30

0.00

-5.00
60

30
-2.00

-10.00

-60

Freq='1.8GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='1.8GHz' Phi='90deg'
150
-180

-180

(d) 0o

-60

-9.00

60

-60

60

-10.00

-20.00

-16.00

-15.00

-30.00

-23.00

-90

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60

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90

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Curve Inf o

-120

Freq='2.1GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='2.1GHz' Phi='90deg'
-150

120

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120

Curve Inf o

-120

150

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150

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(g) 0o

(h) 30o

-150

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-10.00
60

30
-2.00

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Freq='2.1GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='2.1GHz' Phi='90deg'
150

(i) 60o

-30

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60

-9.00

-60

-15.00

-13.00

-16.00

-20.00

-19.00

-23.00

-90

90

120

Curve Info

Freq='2.1GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='2.1GHz' Phi='90deg'

-90

90

60

-90

90

Curve Info

Freq='2.5GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='2.5GHz' Phi='90deg'

-120

-150

150

120

-120

120

Curve Inf o

-120

-150

150

-180

-180

(j) 0o

(k) 30o

-150

150
-180

(l) 60o

Fig. 9. Antenna radiation patterns at different frequencies, (a-c) 865MHz (d-f) 1.8GHz (g-i) 2.1GHz (j-l) 2.5GHz

1747

120

Curve Info

Freq='2.5GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='2.5GHz' Phi='90deg'

Freq='2.5GHz' Phi='0deg'
Freq='2.5GHz' Phi='90deg'

It is also noticed that, the variation of on-body gain is

higher when antenna is placed at lower bending angle while
the variation is lower when antenna is bent at higher angles.
The frequencies with corresponding gains at different bending
angles are tabulated in Table I.

REFERENCES
[1]

[2]

TABLE I. SIMULATED PEAK GAINS

Frequency /
Bend Angle
0o
30o
60o

865MHz

1.8GHz

2.1GHz

2.5GHz

2.13
0.35
0.85

1.90
1.27
0.44

3.38
1.86
0.53

4.20
2.90
1.88

IV.

[3]

[4]

CONCLUSION

[5]

A compact and flexible on-body micro-strip antenna is

presented and discussed. The recto-circular patch antenna
design, for the first time, has been realized for near the body
scenario along with different bending angles of the textile
antenna. Blue jeans with thickness 1mm and permittivity 1.68
is preferred for proposed antenna because of its low cost and
easy integration in human clothing. The antenna resonates at
2.5GHz with additional bandwidth of 2.25 GHz ranging from
0.7GHz to 2.95GHz. Near body analysis of the textile antenna
is conducted by placing antenna over a young male body
phantom with 5mm separation between antenna and phantom.
The different design phases towards optimized antenna design
with bend profiling were discussed. Antenna at 30o and 60o
bending angles is observed; the results show frequency shifting
towards higher bands and variation in bandwidth. Omni
directional radiation patterns at 865MHz and relatively
directional patterns at 1.8, 2.1 and 2.5GHz have been achieved,
which makes antenna suitable for power efficient BCWC. The
gain of antenna remains in the range of 0.25 to 4.2dB even
during antenna bending. The agreement between simulated and
measures results marks this antenna feasible for a variety of
wireless technologies like WLAN, Bluetooth, UMTS, ZigBee,
DECT, WiMAX, Wi-Fi and RFID.

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]
[12]
[13]

1748

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