Direct-Write Spray Coating of a Full-Duplex Antenna for E-Textile Applications

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrical Engineering
• Textile Engineering

Background:

• Flexible and wearable electronics are advancing, with electronic textiles (E-textiles) being ideal for wireless body area networks (WBANs) in healthcare.
• Current WBANs face limitations due to the lack of effective flexible antennas for reliable wireless communication and data transfer.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel fabrication process for flexible, textile-based multifunctional antennas with improved dielectric properties.
• To enhance the dielectric characteristics of E-textiles for better performance in wearable healthcare applications.

Main Methods:

• Direct-write printing of a dielectric ink containing UV-curable acrylates, urethane, and barium titanate (BT) nanoparticles onto knit fabrics.
• Controlled spray-coating of the BT dielectric ink to enhance dielectric properties while maintaining fabric flexibility and air permeability.

Main Results:

• The dielectric constant of the textile substrate was enhanced from 1.43 to 1.61.
• The fabricated textile antenna demonstrated high flexibility (2 N for 30 mm deformation), operated in full-duplex mode, and achieved a gain of 9.12 dB at 2.3 GHz with a 79 MHz bandwidth.

Conclusions:

• The novel fabrication process successfully created multifunctional textile antennas with enhanced dielectric properties and flexibility.
• This advancement offers a simplified approach to assembling complex E-textile systems for wearable healthcare and WBANs.