IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO.
7, JULY 2013
Communications
UHF Wearable Rectenna on Textile Materials
Giuseppina Monti, Laura Corchia, and Luciano Tarricone
Abstract—A wearable rectenna for operation in the ultra high frequency
(UHF) band is presented. The proposed device consists of a compact patch
antenna and a full-wave bridge rectifier, both fabricated with textile mate-
rials. The patch antenna has been realized by using an adhesive conductive
fabric on a bi-layer substrate made of pile and jeans. As for the rectifier, it
is on a layer of jeans on the back-face of the antenna. Experimental data
referring both to the patch antenna and to the rectenna are reported and
discussed. From measurements performed with an incident power density
of 14 W/cm , it is demonstrated that the rectenna here presented exhibits
a conversion efficiency higher than 20% over the frequency range 860–918
MHz with a maximum of about 50% at 876 MHz.
Index Terms—Conductive fabric, conversion efficiency, rectenna, textile
materials, wearable antenna.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the design of wearable electronics is gaining a growing
interest. In fact, body-worn computers are crucial in wireless body area
network (WBAN) applications such as health-care monitoring, mobile
computing and public safety [1]–[5]. To this regard, the antenna plays
a key role in implementing the wireless communication. Accordingly,
some antennas for body-centric communications have been proposed in
the literature [6]–[12]. The keywords are wearable, fabric-based, light
weight, low cost, almost maintenance-free antennas.
In [4] a circular disk microstrip antenna operating in the Bluetooth
ISM band 2400–2485 MHz is presented. Experimental data obtained for
two different realizations using copper and an electro-textile material
(Flectron with a resistivity of 0.007 /sq) for the conductive parts are
compared. Values of the gain higher than 4 dBi are demonstrated in both
cases.
A multiband monopole antenna is proposed in [5]. The antenna is
fabricated using common felt and a conductive textile with a low surface
resistivity. From the measured reflection coefficient it is demonstrated a
dual-band behavior with a lower band extending from 0.49 GHz to 1.01
GHz and an upper-band extending from 1.71 GHz to 3.63 GHz.
Based on a special structure, where the patch, the substrate and
the ground are woven together as a unity, a wearable array antenna is
proposed in [12]. More specifically, the authors propose a fabrication
process where copper wires are used for the patch and the ground
plane while glass fibers are used as dielectric.
As for rectifying antennas (rectennas), to the knowledge of the au-
thors, the only wearable device proposed so far in the literature is the
one presented in [13], where numerical data referring to a multi-fre-
quency RF energy harvesting system are reported. The multi-band be-
havior is obtained by using a slotted annular-ring microstrip antenna.
Manuscript received August 09, 2012; revised February 12, 2013; accepted
March 18, 2013. Date of publication March 26, 2013; date of current version
July 01, 2013.
The authors are with the Department of Engineering for Innovation, Uni-
versity of Salento, Lecce 73100, Italy (e-mail: giuseppina.monti@unisalento.it;
laura.corchia@unisalento.it; luciano.tarricone@unisalento.it).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are avail-
able online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2013.2254693
0018-926X/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE
3869
The overall system is a multi-layer structure using two layers of pile,
the Global EMC shielding fabric for the conductive parts, a layer of
Kapton for the rectifying circuit, and a thermo-adhesive layer at each
interface between pile and conductive fabric.
In this communication a UHF textile rectenna is presented. It con-
sists of a compact patch antenna fabricated by using a conductive non-
woven textile on a bi-layer substrate of pile and jeans. The circuit used
to rectify the RF signal received by the antenna is a full-wave bridge
rectifier on a layer of jeans attached to the ground plane of the antenna.
It was fabricated by using RF Schottky Diodes and the same conduc-
tive fabric used for the patch antenna.
The main advantages of the proposed device consist in: the very
simple structure, the materials and the process used for fabrication. In
fact, the non-woven textile used for the realization of all conductive
parts (both the ones of the antenna and the ones of the rectifier) is a low-
cost adhesive fabric. Furthermore, this conductive fabric has no fraying
problems thus allowing the accurate realization of even very compli-
cated geometries. To this regard, the shape of the fabricated patch in-
cludes some very thin slits that were realized by using a common cut-
ting plotter [14], thus resulting in a time-saving and cost-effective re-
alization process.
Experimental and numerical data are reported and discussed, demon-
strating that the device here presented is an optimum candidate to be
used both as body-worn antenna (when used without the rectifier) or
rectenna in WBAN applications.
From measurements, with respect to a 50 impedance the textile
patch antenna exhibits a relative impedance bandwidth of 2.8% cen-
tered at 892 MHz. As for the rectenna, experimental data demonstrate
that the proposed device exhibits a maximum of the conversion effi-
ciency at 876 MHz of about 50%.
The communication is structured as follows: in Section II the ar-
chitecture of the proposed rectenna is briefly described, in Section III
numerical and experimental data are given and discussed, finally some
conclusions are drawn in Section IV.
II. ARCHITECTURE OF THE PROPOSED RECTENNA
Photographs of the proposed rectenna are given in Fig. 1(a)–(d); the
side view of the multilayer structure used for fabrication is illustrated
in Fig. 1(e). The antenna substrate is a bi-layer made of a first layer
of a pile-like fabric and a second layer of jeans. The patch and the
ground plane are on the pile and on the jeans layer, respectively. They
were both realized by means of a self-adhesive conductive non-woven
fabric with a surface resistivity of 0.04 /sq. More specifically, a nylon
non-woven fabric with a copper coating was used.
The electromagnetic parameters of the bi-layer substrate that was
used during the antenna design process were determined by comparing
numerical and experimental data obtained for some simple rectangular
patches. This way, the following values were derived for the relative
permittivity and the loss tangent of the pile and the jeans
layer:
As for the rectifier, it is on a layer of jeans attached to the ground
plane of the antenna. All connection lines are microstrip lines realized
by using the same conductive non-woven fabric used for the patch (the
3870 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 7, JULY 2013

Fig. 2. Geometry of the patch antenna. Dimensions in millimeters:

Fig. 1. Photographs of the wearable rectenna proposed in this communication:

(a) front view, (b) back view, (c) rectifier magnification, (d) example of place-
ment on a jacket of the proposed rectenna. (e) side view of the multi-layer struc-
ture used for the fabrication of the rectenna. Fig. 3. Shapes investigated for the slits on the edges of the patch.

ground plane is the same of the antenna). In the following part of this
section more details about the rectenna design process are given.

A. Geometry of the Patch Antenna

The geometry of the patch antenna is illustrated in Fig. 2. It was opti-

mized by means of full-wave simulations performed with the simulator
CST to work at 890 MHz. More specifically, optimizations were per-
formed in order to achieve the best trade-off among: dB frequency Fig. 4. Numerical data calculated for different shapes of the slits on the edges
bandwidth (the goal was a relative bandwidth greater than 3% centered at of the patch antenna (see Fig. 3). The slit dimensions are given in Fig. 2.
890 MHz), Axial Ratio-AR (the goal was an AR lower than 6 dB), gain
(the goal was a gain higher than 4 dB at 890 MHz) and compact dimen-
sions. Optimizations were performed by assuming a coaxial excitation in
the point highlighted in Fig. 2 as Feed Point. As for the goal on the AR, a
slot was applied on the diagonal of the patch in order to obtain an elliptical
polarization which is preferable to a linear one in rectenna applications.
Furthermore, in order to reduce the size of the patch, the well-known de-
sign strategy of applying orthogonal slits to the boundary of the radiating
patch was adopted. More specifically, a slit was applied on each of the
Fig. 5. Schematic representation of the circuit used to rectify the RF signal
four edges of the patch. The shape of the slits (see Fig. 3) was optimized in received by the patch antenna.
order to obtain the best compromise in terms of bandwidth, polarization,
and size reduction of the patch. Fig. 3 shows some of the shapes that were
investigated: the simple slit [15], the t-slit proposed in [16] and a modi- bands for the WBAN applications defined in the IEEE 802.15.6 stan-
fied t-slit proposed for the first time in this communication (see Fig. 3(c)). dard (608–614 MHz or 1395–1400 MHz).
The corresponding reflection coefficients are given in Fig. 4, the best re-
sult was obtained for the modified t-slit. It is worth underlining that the B. Rectifier
realization of this quite complicated geometry for the slit was made pos- The circuit used to rectify the signal received by the antenna consists
sible by the fact that, as evident from Fig. 1, the non-woven fabric used of four diodes in a full-wave bridge configuration. The corresponding
for the patch has no fraying problems. circuit schematic is illustrated in Fig. 5; diodes are the HSMS
More in detail, the patch was fabricated by using a low-cost cut- by Avago Technologies.
ting plotter machine usually adopted in the graphic industry for cut- The rectifier design process was developed by exploiting experi-
ting and shaping vinyl foils [14], thus resulting in a cost-effective and mental data of the input impedance of the wearable patch antenna and
time-saving realization process which represents one of the main ad- by assuming a resistive load of 1 k . More specifically, circuital op-
vantages of the proposed antenna. It is worth underlining that the choice timizations of the schematic illustrated in Fig. 5 were performed so
of the antenna operating frequency was driven by the experimental to minimize reflection loss between the antenna and the rectifier in the
set-up available for measuring the conversion efficiency of the rectenna UHF band centered at 890 MHz. As it can be seen from Fig. 5, the input
[17]–[19], which allows to perform measurements in the frequency matching network consists of a microstrip line and a series trimmer
range (750–1050 MHz). However, numerical results demonstrate that capacitor with a capacitance range of 0.65–2.5 pF. The presence of a
the proposed layout could be easily re-designed in one of the UHF capacitor in a shunt configuration with respect to the load can be also
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 7, JULY 2013 3871

Fig. 6. Comparison between numerical and experimental data obtained for the
reflection coefficient of the textile patch antenna. The input port was placed
between the feed point on the patch (see Fig. 2) and the ground plane.

Fig. 7. (a) Comparison between numerical and experimental data obtained for
the gain of the textile patch antenna. (b) Axial ratio of the proposed rectenna as Fig. 8. Comparison between data calculated for the antenna without coverage
calculated by CST Microwave Studio. and in the case of a superstrate of jeans (0.5 mm) or pile (1 mm): (a) gain cal-
culated by means of full-wave simulations at 892 MHz in the xz- and yz-plane;
(b) measured reflection coefficient.
noticed. It is a 4.7 F capacitor which acts as a low-pass filter, thus
preserving the load from unwanted RF signals. As for the fabrication
process, it was the same adopted for the patch: the cutting plotter was front-to-back ratio is of about 20 dB. Referring to wearable applica-
used for the realization of all microstrip lines. Furthermore, it is worth tions, it may be desirable to increase this value as much as possible by
underlining that the use of a non-woven fabric has made possible the widening the antenna ground plane compatibly with the position of the
mounting of the lumped elements to the microstrip lines by means of antenna on the garment. As for the antenna 3-dB beamwidth it is 79.7
a standard soft soldering. in the -plane and 67.2 in the -plane; while the calculated radia-
tion efficiency is 41.4%.
III. NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS The effect on the antenna performance of a textile superstrate was
also investigated; corresponding results are given in Fig. 8. As regards
Experimental measurements were performed both for the patch an-
the effect of the superstrate on the radiation pattern, from Fig. 8(a) it is
tenna and the rectenna. Fig. 6 compares the numerical data calculated
evident that the presence of the superstrate does not introduce signif-
for the reflection coefficient of the textile patch antenna with measure-
icant changes; the gain calculated by means of full-wave simulations
ments. In both cases the input port (an SMA connector) was placed be-
is higher than 4.5 dB in all cases. Fig. 8(b) compares the measured re-
tween the ground plane and the point on the patch highlighted in Fig. 2
flection coefficient; it can be seen that the presence of a fabric coverage
as Feed Point. It can be seen that a perfect agreement was obtained be-
reduces the patch resonance frequency. In particular, in the worst case,
tween simulations and measurements; from measurements the antenna
corresponding to a jeans superstrate, the resonance frequency becomes
resonates at 892 MHz and, with respect to a 50 reference impedance,
884 MHz, thus resulting in a shift of only 8 MHz.
exhibits a reflection coefficient lower than dB in the frequency
The performance of the proposed wearable antenna when integrated
range 880–905 MHz.
with the rectifier (see Fig. 1) and used as a rectenna was also investi-
Measurements of the gain in a large outdoor area were also per-
gated. The connection between the antenna and the rectifier was real-
formed; results obtained this way at 892 MHz are given in Fig. 7(a)
ized by means of a shielded wire of copper with a radius of 0.25 mm
and compared with numerical data. A maximum of about 4.6 dB has
applied in the same point used for the coaxial excitation of the antenna
been obtained. The slight differences that can be observed in Fig. 7(a)
(the point referred as Feed Point in Fig. 2). Experimental tests were per-
between the simulated and the measured gain are probably due to im-
formed by using a Software-Defined Radio (SDR) platform [17]–[19].
perfections of the bi-layer substrate. In fact, the layers of pile and jeans
In order to avoid spurious reflections, experiments were performed in
were shaped and sewn one to the other by hand thus resulting in a
a large outdoor area and with a distance between the transmitting an-
slightly irregular profile and a thickness that has small variations. As
tenna (a 3 dBi monopole) and the rectenna of 1 m.
for the polarization, from full-wave simulations an elliptical polariza-
The efficiency of the proposed rectenna was investigated by varying
tion has been calculated at the resonance frequency of the antenna (see
the value of the resistive load, the power density and the frequency of
Fig. 7(b)). It was also verified that lower values of the Axial Ratio, cor-
the microwave signal incident on the antenna. We refer to the following
responding to a circular polarization, can be obtained by increasing the
definition of the RF-to-DC conversion efficiency
length of the slot on the diagonal or by moving the feed position toward
the patch diagonal. (1)
Fig. 8(a) shows numerical data obtained for the antenna gain; a slight
asymmetry in the backward direction can be noticed. This asymmetry where is the power density incident on the antenna, is the
is probably due to the presence of the diagonal slot (which makes the DC output voltage, is the resistive load (see Fig. 5). is the ef-
structure not completely symmetric) and to the finite dimensions of fective area of the patch antenna experimentally estimated as the ratio
the ground plane. It can be also observed that the proposed textile between the power received by the antenna and the incident power den-
antenna exhibits a very low radiation in the backward direction, the sity . The PMM 8053A broadband field meter with the EP-183
3872
Fig. 9. Measured data of the proposed rectenna obtained by varying the power
transmitted by the SDR monopole and the resistive load: (a) antenna RF-to-DC
conversion efficiency at 876 MHz, (b) DC voltage at the output port of the rec-
tifier.
Fig. 10. Experimental data obtained for the RF-to-DC conversion efficiency
for different values of the frequency of the RF input signal.
isotropic probe was used to measure . It is worth underlining that
(1) does not take into account the polarization mismatch between the
transmitting monopole of the SDR platform and the proposed antenna.
However, measurements were performed by adjusting the relative posi-
tion of the transmitting and receiving antenna in order to minimize loss
due to polarization mismatches. More in detail, the SDR monopole was
oriented along the patch diagonal.
Results obtained this way for the RF-to-DC conversion efficiency
are summarized in Figs. 9–10. From experimental data, the proposed
wearable rectenna exhibits a maximum of of about 50% at 876 MHz.
This value was measured for a power density incident on the antenna
of 14 W/cm and a load of 1 k . Fig. 9(a) shows results obtained at
876 MHz for different values of and . It can be noticed that, the
maximum of was obtained for a resistive load of 1 k , that was the
value assumed for the load during circuital optimization of the rectifier.
In particular, from measurements in the case of k assumes
values higher than 45% when the power density incident on the antenna
is in the range 3–15.5 W/cm . The DC voltage at the output port of
the rectifier corresponding to the conversion efficiency illustrated in
Fig. 9(a) is given in Fig. 9(b). The maximum of corresponds to a DC
output voltage of about 1.42 V.
Finally, experimental data obtained by varying the frequency of the
signal generated by the USRP are summarized in Fig. 10. These data
were collected by keeping constant the rectenna load and the power
incident on the antenna at 1 k and 14 W/cm , respectively. It can be
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 61, NO. 7, JULY 2013
seen that the measured values of are higher than 20% in the frequency
range 860–918 MHz.
IV. CONCLUSION
A wearable textile rectenna operating in the UHF band has been
presented. The proposed device uses a compact microstrip patch an-
tenna to receive the RF electromagnetic energy and a full-wave bridge
realized on the back face of the antenna for rectification. The dielec-
tric substrate consists of a jeans and a pile fabric stacked to form a
bi-layer structure, whereas all conductive parts are made of a self-ad-
hesive non-woven fabric. Experimental data referring both to the patch
antenna and to the same antenna integrated with the rectifier to work
as a rectenna are given and discussed. The patch antenna resonates at
892 MHz with a gain of about 4.6 dB and an elliptical polarization.
As for the rectenna, with a power density incident on the antenna of
14 W/cm , values of the RF-to-DC conversion efficiency higher than
20% were measured in the frequency range 860–918 MHz. The max-
imum was at 876 MHz and was of about 50%. These results demon-
strate that the proposed device is an optimum candidate to be adopted
in Wireless Body Area Network applications both if used as antenna
and as a rectenna.
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A Wearable Wideband Circularly Polarized Textile
Antenna for Effective Power Transmission on a
Wirelessly-Powered Sensor Platform
K. W. Lui, O. H. Murphy, and C. Toumazou
Abstract—In this communication, the simulation and experimental
results of a novel wideband wearable circularly polarized textile antenna
for low-power transmission in the 2.45 GHz ISM band are presented.
The wide impedance and axial ratio bandwidths make it perfect for low
microwave power transmission to a wearable sensor system. The antenna
is flexible, robust and light weight so that it can be easily integrated into
clothes. It is shown that the circularly polarized textile antenna has a
3-dB axial ratio bandwidth of 564 MHz (23%) and a dB impedance
bandwidth of 1086 MHz (44%) on a human body with the maximum gain
of 4.9 dBic. Lastly, the textile antenna is employed on the battery-less
temperature sensor system on a human arm to demonstrate the effective
power transmission over a metre distance.
Index Terms—Broadband antenna, circular polarization, energy har-
vesting, ISM band, textile antennas, wireless temperature sensor.
I. INTRODUCTION
Recently there has been growing use of textile antennas for body-
centric applications such as healthcare, GPS and fire fighter personal
communications [1], [2]. Both linearly and circularly polarized tex-
tile antennas are studied. A textile antenna is chosen for such appli-
cations due to its lightweight and easy integration into human clothing.
However, literature on the simulation of body-worn textile antennas for
far-field power harvesting and transmission is rarely found [3].
An antenna with circular polarization is preferred over linear polar-
ization for power transmission due to its independence of orientation.
In order for a patch antenna to generate circular polarization, modifi-
cations are needed such as cutting a notch at the opposite corners or
providing 90 out phase feedings at orthogonal edges [2], [4], [5], but
such methods are either complicated or only able to produce circular
Manuscript received January 29, 2013; accepted March 18, 2013. Date of
publication March 27, 2013; date of current version July 01, 2013.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Imperial College, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, U.K. (e-mail:
(k.lui09@imperial.ac.uk).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are avail-
able online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2013.2255094
0018-926X/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE
3873
polarization at a very limited bandwidth without covering the whole
2.45 GHz ISM band [2]. Moreover, due to bending, proximity of the
human body and the narrow bandwidth of a patch antenna, the reso-
nant frequency may be shifted due to the movement of a human body
or manufacturing variations. As a result, the efficiency of power trans-
mission is degraded at the desired frequency.
In recent years, several high performance wide-slot circularly po-
larized antennas have been proposed [6], [7]. A coplanar waveguide
(CPW) fed antenna features wide impedance and axial ratio bandwidths
that are essential to body-worn textile antenna applications as it has
higher tolerance to different conditions on a human body. Also it only
consists of a single layer of metal. Therefore, a cost effective and high
performance body-worn textile antenna can be designed based on a
wide-slot antenna topology. However, due to the missing ground plane,
the influence of human body to the antenna near field has to be care-
fully simulated in Microwave Office to ensure the effectiveness of op-
eration. Also the antenna structure has to be simple and robust enough
for bending on a human arm and the antenna is able to operate at var-
ious distances from a human body.
In this communication, a novel body-worn circularly polarized tex-
tile antenna for power transmission of a wirelessly-powered sensor
system is presented. The antenna has a dB impedance band cov-
ering the 2.45 GHz ISM band (2.4 GHz–2.5 GHz) and is still able to
maintain good axial ratio over that band.
Finally the textile antenna is bent to fit on a human arm and is con-
nected to the wirelessly-powered temperature sensor system, the de-
sign of which was presented in a previous work [8]. It is shown that the
system is able to communicate to a laptop 1.7 meters away with only
50 mW power transmitted from a base station using a helix antenna in
an anechoic chamber.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
A. Textile Materials and Manufacturing
A planar textile antenna consists of 2 layers as shown in Fig. 1. The
top layer is the conductive fabric and the bottom layer is the felt sub-
strate. Both materials have to be highly flexible but also rigid enough to
conform on any surface of a human body. A Flectron™ self-adhesive
EMI shielding sheet has been chosen for this purpose due to its flexi-
bility and high conductivity ( 0.070 / ). It is made of a thin metal
coating of nickel on non-woven fabrics and can be easily cut without
a special tool [9]. A common 1 mm-thick 100% acrylic self-adhesive
felt is chosen as the substrate for the antenna due to its flexibility and
easy stacking for different thicknesses. The dielectric constant and loss
tangent are determined as 1.5 and 0.02, respectively by matching the
resonant frequencies of a simple patch antenna from the experimental
and simulation results. The antenna is hand-made by cutting along the
antenna pattern on the back of the shielding sheet and sticking on a
76 76 mm felt. An end-launch SMA connector is press-fit to the
antenna by clamping the feet together and then the conductive silver
epoxy is applied to further secure the connection as shown in Fig. 1.
The gap between the feed line and the ground is 0.7 mm for easier
hand-cutting and so the input impedance is 75 at free space due to
the relatively large gap in the feed.
B. Antenna Topology and Simulation
The antenna design objective is to have a wearable antenna to de-
liver robust low-power transmission to a human body covering the 2.45
GHz ISM band. In order for easy integration into clothing, the textile
antenna has to be flexible and 2-dimensional and has a wide impedance