A Novel Fluid-Based Pattern-Reconfigurable, Textile Antenna Array for Wearable Applications

The pattern reconfigurability of a textile antenna is investigated based on the fluidic selection for a 4-channel platform used as parasitic and phase shifters. A textile loop antenna is designed where the 4-channel platform is placed on top of the antenna to be used as a flat lens and a beam steering engine. Two fluidics namely distilled and sea waters were selected as actuators. Each channel was activated by one fluidic at a time and the radiation was evaluated. The loop antenna is designed considering conductive textile automatically embroidered onto denim fabric. The channel platform consists of 4 compartments made of polymer. The simulation suggests that, at 1 GHz, using distilled and sea waters, the elevation angle of the antenna is steered from -145 ^◦ to 139 ^◦ and the amplitude of the realized gain varied from 1 to 15 dB. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first time a clothing-integrated, fluidically reconfigurable antenna is studied and reported. This result can be used as a design guideline for textile-based beam-steering antenna used for wearable applications.