Wearable textile GPS antenna for integration in protective garments

In the context of wearable textile systems for rescue workers, the knowledge of the position of the mobile operator is a crucial information for coordination of interventions. For this purpose, a textile wearable GPS antenna is required. Such an antenna must be completely integrable into a protective garment and resistent against harsh environmental conditions. Moreover, its performance must be sufficiently resilient to real-work disturbances, such as the proximity of textile materials composing the garment and the wearer's human body. A GPS textile wearable patch antenna was designed in order to meet such requirements. Performance investigations on a realized prototype were carried out by means of measurements in open space and in two real-work situations, showing an excellent behavior in open-space and a slight performance degradation when textiles and/or human body are present. However, the performance of the proposed antenna are sufficiently satisfactory and promising for application in wearable textile systems.