3-Dimensional Wearable Patch Antennas with Improved Bandwidth and Efficiency for Athlete, Patient, Firefighter and Soldier Applications

We live in a wireless world where we demand the ability to communicate wherever we are. This level of convenience can only be achieved by replacing wires with antennas capable of reliably transmitting signals through the air. To continue to meet this demand for wireless, discrete and robust communication systems, designers and commercial pioneers are conceptualising new applications that will integrate antennas into clothing. These concepts are of particular benefit for certain groups who have specific requirements for communication systems including the emergency services, military, elite athletes, patients and fashion innovators. Realising these concepts will expand an exciting new manufacturing sector tying together innovative textiles and advanced electronics manufacturing.

This research has the potential to transform modern communications. Communication devices that are integrated into clothing will be light, immediately accessible, easy to use, robust and impossible to leave behind. In safety critical scenarios, such as search and rescue or battlefield situations, the risk of communication breakdown between protagonists is reduced and the ability to locate people at risk is greatly increased. In less immediately critical scenarios, such as long term care of dementia patients, integrated antennas can be used to track patients should they wander away from the safety of their own home environments. Similarly, sufferers of chronic diseases such as heart disease could conceivably wear transmitting monitoring devices in their home environments to apprise their supervising physicians of their ongoing condition.

Currently, wearable antennas are not commonly found in mainstream markets due to concerns around user comfort; antenna efficiency; the antenna detuning when in proximity to the human body and risks around the absorption of electromagnetic energy into the body. This project addresses these concerns by reducing antenna volume or improving the bandwidth and/or the communication range and will lead towards making the practical integration of fabric antennas a viable commercial reality.

Typically, reducing antenna size can compromise electromagnetic performance (range and bandwidth). This also applies when reducing the height of planar antennas. Convention has decreed that patch antennas are planar; however, the electric fields underneath an antenna are not uniform. The hypothesis of this project is that increasing the height of the antenna in certain locations will particularly benefit antenna performance. Therefore, an optimised 3-D antenna can be designed to maximise the bandwidth and efficiency to volume ratio.

This research project will improve the electromagnetic performance of wearable antennas using optimised 3-D structures in conjunction with high performance materials. A strong consortium of commercial Project Partners ensures the work has impact for UK manufacturing from the outset and that the benefits to the military, sporting and health sectors can be realised.

Loughborough University is home to two of the UK's leading groups in antennas and electromagnetics and enjoys an international reputation for excellence in sports and sports technology. Dr. Whittow, who has more than ten years of experience in antenna design and electromagnetic interactions with the human body, will manage this 21 month project.

This project will benefit diverse groups of people in the UK including: the emergency services, military, athletes and patients. By creating a step change in the performance (bandwidth, efficiency and size) as well as the comfort and aesthetics of wearable antennas - a myriad of technologies will become commercially viable and attractive to new markets leading to the advances in the quality of life for users. The potential of these lucrative commercial outcomes have prompted 8 companies to invest their time, materials and facilities in the project.

The UK military (~227,000 personnel + 175,000 reserves) and emergency services (180,000 serving police officers and 53,000 full and p/t firefighters) require high performing reliable, robust and compact systems to communicate position, physical and physiological data in harsh environments. This enhanced intelligence improves their effectiveness, reduces resources and saves lives. By improving the bandwidth, more information, such as live video, can be transmitted. Similarly improving the efficiency will both extend the communication range and reduce battery size. A problematic characteristic of current military wearable antennas is that the power level is limited to avoid exposing wearers to excessive electromagnetic heating. It is hypothesized that this work will reduce the energy absorbed and hence allow larger power levels to transmit safely, e.g. communicating directly from the body to satellites (36,000km away). 217 British military personnel (~75% were under 30) have lost their lives in Afghanistan due to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) [1]. Many of these deaths could have been prevented with high power wearable anti-jamming transmitters.

In addition to its reputation for engineering excellence, Loughborough University is a leading centre of excellence for elite athletes across all sports. Its many Olympian graduates include Sebastian Coe, Paula Radcliffe and Tanni Grey-Thompson. Sport is a multi-billion pound industry and increasingly coaches and athletes are turning to technology to improve performances. Currently, the textile antennas are too uncomfortable and unreliable to be an attractive option. This work will improve comfort by reducing the antenna size and employing new highly conducting, extremely soft and flexible textiles. It is anticipated that applications that are initially designed for elite athletes, will evolve into mainstream products for the sporting public.

We live in an ageing society. It is predicted that 10 million people currently alive in the UK will live to be 100 years old. People over 65 occupy two thirds of NHS beds. It is predicted that within the next decade, the UK economy will not be able to support this growing financial burden. Technological solutions are urgently needed to reduce costs and maintain care standards for older people. One lower cost, hi-tech solution is to monitor patients in their own homes rather than hospital environments - telemedicine. The cost to the NHS of a single patient's overnight hospital stay is more than £300 and sometimes 5* hotels are used as overflow facilities as the system struggles to cope, compromising patient care standards [2]. The telemedicine solution which is dependent on enhanced wearable antennas will save the NHS billions of pounds a year in infrastructure, staffing and consumables and reduce the spread of infectious diseases. Every year, the UK records 2,000 cases of MRSA and 24,000 cases of Clostridium Difficile Infection (www.hpa.org.uk).

People with cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer disease sufferers are among the most vulnerable members of society. There are currently around 800,000 Alzheimer sufferers in the UK and this number is growing. This new generation of wearable antennas could have a role to play in monitoring these patients in their home environments.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15188729
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11708963