Embroidered textile antennas based on hybrid sewing thread

Abstract:

This paper presents a research focused on textile antennas which are made embroidered from a novel hybrid conductive sewing thread. Thanks to embroidery, which has been recognized as one of the most promising manufacturing techniques for integrating antennas into clothing, the antennas are more robust, more flexible, fully washable and comfortable for wearing.

These properties are important due to the increasing demand for smart textiles products in sport wear, medical or military segment. The objective of this research is to develop a wearable textile antenna optimized to the frequency of 868 MHz. Two different patterns of antennas, i.e. dipole and fractal dipole antenna were designed and investigated. The prototypes of embroidered antennas were realized with the novel brass hybrid sewing thread on a flame-resistant fabric substrate. The thread, which is composed of two strands each containing 48 polyester (PES) fibers and 4 brass microwires, was developed by the UVB Company in close cooperation with University of West Bohemia in Pilsen and it is protected is protected by Czech utility model CZ 28603.

The final optimized antenna could be used for applications such as RFID, personal protective clothing or IoT (Internet of Things) networks.