Wearable GPS patch antenna on jeans fabric

In this work a wearable GPS adhesive copper sheet patch antenna on jeans fabric is designed, simulated and tested including the human body impact and specific absorption rate (SAR). The proposed textile antenna operates at the GPS L1 band (1575.42 MHz) and it has been designed by means of the commercial full 3D electromagnetic CST Microwave Studio simulator. The original textile antenna presents a -13.6 dB return loss at the GPS L1 frequency band with a fractional bandwidth of BW = 3% (at S₁₁ = -10 dB), with a gain G = 1.7 dBi and efficiency η = 23.1%. A homogeneous phantom has been considered in order to simulate the SAR in the leg of an average human body. The impact of the human body on the antenna performance implies a detuning frequency of 1.6% and G = 1.2 dBi; η = 19% at the GPS operation frequency. In addition, several bending scenarios have been simulated to determine the degradation of the return loss, realized gain and efficiency. The proposed antenna is compliant with specific absorption rate (SAR) requirements from the IEEE C95.3 standard.