ElectronicTextile Antennas

"Current man portable antennas are heavy, rigid, telescoping or umbrella like contraptions, which limit the mobility and speed of a deployed unit. We propose to improve the weight, storage size, and ease of deployment of a portable antenna through the useof electronic textiles as described in this proposal. Planar antennas have been manufactured on thin films and rolled into position, however a rigid mounting structure must be used to protect the film and to keep it in place. The unique ability of fabricto drape, and take any form repeatedly without damage, will be the key to enabling next generation conformable antennas. Incorporating conductive fibers into the weave of the cloth without losing the flexibility of the cloth requires non-contact "induced"current interconnects. Such induced interconnects can be created at radio frequencies by wires oriented broadside and spaced < 1/20-th of a wavelength apart. With typical fabric densities of 30 threads-per-inch such interconnects can be created up to 8 GHzin a woven pattern using standard textile manufacturing processes. This proposal will outline a practical approach to designing a woven RF patch antenna array in the 1.5 GHz band using conductive threads. Candidate applications for RF e-textiles are in theareas of large area, flexible, and conformable antennas arrays. While the target application is a portable S-Band Satellite communications antenna, there are a vast number of militar