Conformal, lightweight textile spiral antenna on Kevlar fabrics

We present a novel conformal, lightweight and load bearing spiral antenna on textiles for conformal applications. The antenna and its integrated planar balun were embroidered using a standard sewing machine with very thin (diameter=0.22mm) Liberator™ E-fibers. There fibers can achieve geometrical accuracy down to 0.3mm and even 0.1mm. This is a 3 fold geometrical accuracy improvement over previous textile designs. To enhance robustness, high-strength Kevlar fabric was employed as the antenna's substrate. Results show a nearly 10:1 bandwidth (0.3-3GHz) with a peak circularly polarized gain of 3dBi over the band.