Crumpling of PIFA Textile Antenna

The performance of a PIFA textile antenna under different crumpling conditions is presented. The PIFA was designed for integration into clothing and other textile applications and the bending and crumpling conditions studied are typical of those found under normal use conditions both on and off body. Input impedance, efficiency and radiation patterns are investigated based on numerical and experimental methods at 2.4 GHz. Crumpling can have a serious effect on the resonant frequency, bandwidth and radiation from textile antennas.