Study on the Effects of Fabric Thickness and Human Phantom to Wearable Textile Antenna Performance

This paper presents a preliminary study on the effects of various thicknesses to textile antenna performance in free space and on-body application using felt as the substrate. Three antenna structures named Antenna 1, 2 and 3 with substrate thickness varies of 3 mm, 6 mm and 9 mm respectively are simulated without and with human muscle tissue phantom using Computer Simulation Technology (CST). A significant gain improvements are observed in both Antenna 2 and 3 from Antenna 1 design in both assessed conditions. The proposed antenna structures show a minimal frequency detuning for on-body application which indicates their suitability for consideration as wearable instrument.