Millimetre wave textile integrated waveguide beamforming antenna for radar applications

In this work, a fully Textile Integrated Waveguide (TIW) beamforming antenna for its use in a radar system operating at 77 GHz is presented. The TIW beamforming antenna is based on a Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) slot antenna array and it is designed to be manufactured completely with conductive and non-conductive threads using industrial textile machinery, avoiding subsequent sewing and adhesive processes for its integration in wearable or comformable systems. The antenna performs beam tilting from 11 to 23 degrees in the H-plane while sweeping the frequency from 70 GHz to 77 GHz. Firstly, a design of the equivalent SIW beamforming antenna structure is simulated and optimized and then, the translation into a fully woven TIW beamforming antenna structure is presented. The proposed TIW beamforming antenna design is provided with a TIW to WR10 standard rectangular waveguide transition for its experimental validation.