Textile antennas: Shotgun proven performance

Demanding operational environments, especially in combat situations, expose soldier's garment integrated textile antennas to potentially destructive conditions. Until now, the environmental testing of textile antennas has included experiments that do not affect the physical integrity. Therefore, splinter effect on textile antennas is experimentally studied in this paper. Splinter effect is created by shooting the antennas with a shotgun. Different pellet sizes were tested. Rigid planar antennas were employed as a reference. Antennas were measured before and after the shooting event and the results showed that textile antennas can survive from a shotgun blast without significant reduction in electrical performance. Furthermore, the physical damages were less severe when compared to rigid antennas.