Flexible CPW-IFA antenna for wearable electronic devices

The capability of bending, twisting and folding offered by mechanically flexible films and/or substrates along with size, weight and cost constraints are among the main challenges in future wearable electronic devices. In this paper, the effects of bending on a planar flexible CPW- IFA antenna operating at WLAN (IEEE 802.11) 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz bandwidths is proposed. The flat antenna achieves a relative bandwidth of 14% (2.25–2.61) GHz and 42% (4.98–7.64) GHz over which S11 is less than −10 dB, and a realized gain of 1.86, 4.21 and 2.94 dB at 2.4, 5.2, and 5.8, respectively. The results show that the antenna maintained the WLAN matching lower and upper bandwidths required under a wide range of bending angles ψB.