Flexible UWB organic antenna for wearable technologies application

Abstract

New generations of printed flexible antennas are playing an important role in wireless communication systems. The ultra wide band and wearable possibilities are critical aspects of these kinds of antennas. In this study, the proposed antenna is an elliptical monopole fed by a coplanar waveguide; it uses a kapton substrate and it is optimised to work from 1 to 8 GHz. In the case of copper, a conductive nanocomposite material based on a polymer (polyaniline: PANI) and charged by multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) is exploited. The flexibility of both the kapton substrate and the nanocomposite (PANI/MWCNTs) provides the ability to crumple the antenna paving the way to potential applications for body-worn wireless communications systems. In this study, the performance of the antenna is investigated in terms of return loss, radiation patterns and gain for both crumpled and uncrumpled antennas. The results confirm that performance remains at a good level when the antenna is crumpled.