Abstract
Conductive textiles, intended to be used for electromagnetic shielding purposes, have recently been utilized for textile antenna applications. Many of these applications revolve around wireless body area network technology. Traditionally, textile antennas have been manually defined with a sharp blade and known antenna dimensions. This thesis investigates the potential for using conductive textiles as a distributed sensor in remote sensing applications as well as an antenna in microwave applications. The end goal of these proof-of-concept experiments is to provide a robust system for combat wound detection which can expedite and direct the medical response team in the field. The manuscript herein explores the ability of conductive textiles to detect the presence and location of cuts and penetrations.
Additionally, this thesis builds upon traditional manually created textile antennas by employing a laser cutting system to accurately define antenna dimensions. Using this technique, a variety of antennas are developed operating over a variety of frequency ranges. To confirm simulation results, a patch antenna is developed and used to extract electrical properties of the substrate material. These values are then used in the simulation and design of single-element and two-element wideband slot antennas as well as the design of a wideband monopole antenna. This monopole antenna is introduced to the indoor ultra-wideband (UWB) localization system to illustrate the capability of localizing the wearer of textile antennas for human movement tracking applications. A cavity-backed dog-bone slot antenna is developed to illustrate the ability to add conductive vias in the antennas using conductive thread. This design can be easily extrapolated to the development of textile substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technologies.
