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Foldable thin electro-textile antenna

array for 4 × 4 multiple-input multiple-
output mobile router applications
a a
Sungjin Choi & Sungjoon Lim
a
School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, College of
Engineering, Chung-Ang University, 221, Heukseok-Dong, Dongjak-
Gu, Seoul 156, Republic of Korea
Published online: 08 Jan 2015.

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To cite this article: Sungjin Choi & Sungjoon Lim (2015): Foldable thin electro-textile
antenna array for 4 × 4 multiple-input multiple-output mobile router applications, Journal of
Electromagnetic Waves and Applications, DOI: 10.1080/09205071.2014.997839

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 Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09205071.2014.997839

Foldable thin electro-textile antenna array for 4 × 4 multiple-input

multiple-output mobile router applications
Sungjin Choi and Sungjoon Lim*

School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, College of Engineering, Chung-Ang University,

Downloaded by [Memorial University of Newfoundland] at 10:03 29 January 2015

221, Heukseok-Dong, Dongjak-Gu, Seoul 156, Republic of Korea

(Received 16 August 2014; accepted 9 December 2014)

A novel foldable thin electro-textile antenna array is proposed for 4 × 4 multiple-input

multiple-output mobile router applications. The proposed antenna array consists of
four antenna elements and is fabricated on a thin-felt textile substrate using adhesive
electro-textile. To minimize the overall space, two antennas are designed from a single
rectangular conductor with two ports. Isolation is enhanced using a decoupling slit
between the two antennas. Because the four antennas share the same system ground
plane, a decoupling slit is also employed on the ground plane. The performance is
successfully validated by the simulation and measurement results.
Keywords: textile antenna; planar monopole antenna; array; mobile router

Introduction
A mobile router is a device used as a relay in multiple wireless networks. A mobile
router performs a variety of network management functions by distributing data traffic.
It can control communication flow and can configure a secondary network in a main
network. As each wireless technology has its own advantages and disadvantages,
choosing the best technology according to its location and needs is a practical approach
in ubiquitous wireless environments.[1]
A mobile router can handle data traffic by deploying a multiple-input multiple-
output (MIMO) technology, which is the core technology for high-speed communication.
In addition, a MIMO system can solve many problems existing in the wireless
communication environment. For example, signal attenuation caused by the multipath
phenomenon can be compensated, and signal interference between adjacent signals can
be minimized.[2]
MIMO technology is available in most current wireless standards, and performance
is improved as the number of antenna elements increases. However, a large number of
antenna elements occupy a large space, and as the overall weight increases, mobility is
sacrificed. Another problem is the performance degradation caused by mutual cou-
pling.[3] If many antennas are installed in a limited space, mutual coupling increases.
Mutual coupling can be simply reduced by placing each antenna element orthogo-
nally.[4] It was reported that isolation can be further improved when ground plane is
defected.[5] Recently, mutual coupling is reduced a lot by combining a series of meth-
ods.[6] For instance, triangle cut corners, a narrow rectangular slit cut off the radiator,

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

 2 S. Choi and S. Lim

and an L-shaped feed line are employed into orthogonally placed antenna elements on
the disconnected ground plane. However, we must employ the simplest design for
conductive pattern of a textile antenna because of the fabrication difficulty of the
electro-textile.
Recently, many textile antennas have been proposed for various practical applica-
tions, and their performances in realistic environments have been studied. For instance,
a textile antenna was reported for the off-body communication of a firefighter.[7]
Kaivanto et al. [8] proposed a textile antenna for personal satellite communication, and
its body effect was studied. Because textile antennas can be exposed in humid and
harsh environments, the influence of humidity was investigated by Hertleer et al. [9]
and a robust antenna in a harsh environment was proposed by Lilja et al. [10]
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In this study, we propose a novel electro-textile antenna array for 4 × 4 MIMO

mobile router applications. Although four antennas are employed, the proposed array is
compact and lightweight owing to the felt textile substrate. Because the textile substrate
is very thin, the proposed array can be folded when not in use; otherwise, it can be
unfolded. In addition, a decoupling slit between two antennas is used to minimize the
overall space while maintaining high isolation. A decoupling slit is also employed on
the ground to suppress the current coupled to another port.
The proposed antenna array is the first textile antenna array for MIMO mobile
routers. Because previous textile antennas were designed for wearable computing or
wireless body area networks, size reduction has not been considered.[11−14]

Antenna design
The proposed antennas are designed on a felt textile substrate with a thickness of
1.2 mm. The relative permittivity and loss tangent of the substrate are 1.14 and 0.02,
respectively, which are determined by the single-frequency and broadband methods.[15]
An electro-textile is used as a conductor. Because the electro-textile consists of nickel,
a conductivity of 1.449 × 107 S/m is used for the EM simulation.
The antenna element is a simple monopole antenna, which has a quarter-
wavelength. Therefore, we first designed a quarter-wavelength rectangular monopole
antenna, which is the antenna #1. Quarter-wavelength is 42 mm at 1.8 GHz. Next, we
combined two monopole antennas (antennas #1 and #2) and introduced the decoupling
slit in order to reduce mutual coupling between two antennas. Two more antennas #3
and #4 are symmetrically placed and additional two slits are introduced on the ground
plane to reduce mutual coupling between the antennas #1 and #3.
Figure 1 shows the geometry of the proposed antenna array with its dimensions.
Because the two antennas (antennas #1 and #2) are designed from a single rectangular
conductor with two ports, the overall space is minimized. The single rectangular con-
ductor, which is the simplest shape, is chosen by considering the fabrication difficulty
of the electro-textile.
The mutual coupling between antennas #1 and #2 is reduced by the decoupling slit.
When port 1 is excited, strong current from port 1 is coupled to port 2 in the antenna
without the decoupling slit, as shown in Figure 2(a). On the other hand, it is observed
from Figure 2(b) that strong current from port 1 flows along the decoupling slit instead
of the rectangular edges. Therefore, mutual coupling is reduced by introducing a signal
path to eliminate the induced currents.
Antennas #3 and #4 are identical to antennas #1 and #2. Because the four antennas
share the same system ground, electric current from antennas #3 and #4 flows to
 Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications 3
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Figure 1. Illustration of the proposed antenna array with geometrical dimensions [units: mm]:
(a) front side and (b) back side.

Figure 2. Current distributions on the antenna and ground plane at 2.4 GHz: (a) without the
decoupling slit on the antenna, (b) with the decoupling slit on the antenna, (c) without the ground
slit, and (d) with the ground slit.

antennas #1 and #2 through the ground plane. Therefore, another decoupling slit is
required on the ground plane to improve the isolation between antennas #1 and #3 as
well as that between antennas #2 and #4. The slit on the ground plane suppresses sur-
face waves, which results in lower mutual coupling between ports 1 and 3, as shown in
Figure 2 (c) and (d).[16,17]
 4 S. Choi and S. Lim

Simulated and measured results

The proposed antenna array is fabricated by attaching the adhesive electro-textile on a
felt textile substrate. In this work, each antenna is connected with a subminiature ver-
sion A connector with silver epoxy. To measure the S parameters and radiation patterns,
the feeding lines are bent at right angle.
Figure 3 shows an image of the fabricated textile antenna array. When a user wants
to connect to a wireless network, the antenna array is unfolded, as shown in Figure 3(a).
When a user is not using the mobile router, the antenna array is folded to a compact
size, as shown in Figure 3(b). Therefore, the overall size of the folded state becomes
one-third that of the unfolded state’s.
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Figure 4 shows the simulated and measured reflection coefficients at port 1, and the
other ports are terminated at 50 Ω. Because the reflection coefficients at the other ports
are similar to the reflection coefficient at port 1, the reflection coefficients at the other
ports are not shown in Figure 4. The simulated and measured results agree well with
each other. The 10-dB bandwidth ranges from 1.4 to 5 GHz, which covers multiple
wireless standards, such as LTE (1.8 GHz), WCDMA (2.1 GHz), Korean WiBro
(2.3 GHz), and Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz).
In order to test the reliability of the proposed antenna array, the reflection coeffi-
cients were measured after the folding and unfolding process was repeated 10, 50, and
100 times. Figure 5 shows the measured reflection coefficients at these iterations of the
folding and unfolding process. It is observed that the reflection coefficients are stable,
while the folding and unfolding process is repeated many times.
The proposed antenna array was tested on various platforms to verify its perfor-
mance in a realistic scenario. In Figure 6, the measured reflection coefficient of the pro-
posed antenna array in empty space is compared with those when the proposed antenna
array was placed on a wooden table, a cloth, a concrete floor, a stainless steel table,
and a sheet of paper with a 2-cm thickness on a metallic table. The test environments
are shown in Figure 7. The 10-dB impedance bandwidth ranges from 1.4 to 5 GHz in
empty space, from 1.06 to 3.63 GHz on the wooden table, from 1 to 3.95 GHz on the

Figure 3. Photograph of the fabricated textile antenna array prototype: (a) unfolded state and
(b) folded state.
 Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications 5
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Figure 4. Simulated and measured reflection coefficients of the proposed textile antenna array.

Figure 5. Measured reflection coefficients at several iterations of folding and unfolding process.

cloth, from 1.16 to 3.54 GHz on the concrete floor, from 1.38 to 1.47 GHz on the
stainless steel table, and from 1.42 to 3.21 GHz on a sheet of paper with a 2-cm thick-
ness on a metallic table. In most cases, the reflection coefficients are less than −10 dB
from 1.42 to 3.21 GHz except for the antenna on a metallic table. It is obvious that the
bandwidth becomes narrower when a monopole or dipole antenna is closer to a con-
ductive ground. Although the performance of the proposed antenna array on the metal-
lic table is degraded, it can be used if a spacer such as a sheet of paper with a
thickness more than 2 cm is placed in between metallic table and proposed antenna
array.
For textile antenna applications, washability is an important issue.[18] Therefore,
the reflection coefficients of the proposed antenna array are measured at three different
conditions of dry, wet, and after washing and drying. It is observed from Figure 8 that
 6 S. Choi and S. Lim
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Figure 6. Measured reflection coefficients when the proposed antenna array is placed on various
platforms.

Figure 7. Test environments: (a) wooden table, (b) cloth worn by the user, (c) concrete floor,
(d) stainless steel table, and (e) plain paper with 2-cm thickness on a stainless steel table.

the reflection coefficient of the dry antenna is similar to that after washing and drying.
This verifies the washability of the proposed antenna array, although the performance
of the wet antenna is degraded because the permittivity and conductivity of the felt
textile substrate are changed.
Figure 9 shows the effect of the decoupling slit between antennas #1 and #2. When
the slit length is 24 mm, the highest isolation is achieved at the operating frequency
band. We observed that the coupling coefficient (S21) with the 2.4-mm slit is lower than
−15 dB from 1.6 to 3.1 GHz.
Figure 10 shows the effect of the ground slit. When the length of the slit on the
ground plane is 32 mm, the highest isolation between antennas #1 and #3 (S31) is
 Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications 7
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Figure 8. Measured reflection coefficients for three conditions: dry state (no wash), wet state,
and after washing and drying.

Figure 9. Simulated coupling coefficients between antennas #1 and #2 (S21) at different decou-
pling slit lengths on the antenna.

achieved in the operating band. However, the isolation of S21 decreases. Therefore, the
length of the ground slit is determined to be 44 mm after considering both S21 and S31.
A comparison of the simulated and measured isolation levels between each port is
shown in Figure 11. The measured isolations of S21, S31, and S41 are below 15 dB from
1.6 to 3.1 GHz. Although antennas #1 and #2 are closely placed, high isolation is
achieved because of the decoupling slit. From S31 and S41, we observe that the decou-
pling slit on the ground plane can successfully improve the isolation.
The radiation patterns are measured at 1.8 and 2.4 GHz for heterogeneous mobile
router network applications. Antenna #1 is excited, while other ports are terminated to
50 Ω. Figure 12 shows the simulated and measured radiation patterns at 1.8 GHz.
 8 S. Choi and S. Lim
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Figure 10. Simulated coupling coefficients between antennas #1 and #3 (S31) at different decou-
pling slit lengths on the ground plane.

Figure 11. Simulated and measured isolation of the proposed textile antenna array.

The gain patterns with respect to phi are plotted at the φ = 0° and 90° planes, as shown
in Figures 12(a) and (b), respectively. Omnidirectional patterns are observed. The gain
patterns with respect to theta are plotted at the φ = 0° and 90° planes, as shown in
Figure 12(c) and (d), respectively. The radiation patterns are similar to those of a
monopole antenna. The simulated peak gain is 1.32 dBi and the simulated radiation
efficiency is 74.5%. The measured peak gain is 1.07 dBi and the measured radiation
efficiency is 69.9%. Figure 13 shows the simulated and measured radiation patterns at
2.4 GHz. The gain patterns are similar to those at 1.8 GHz. Omnidirectional and mono-
polar patterns are observed as well. The simulated peak gain is 1.73 dBi and the simu-
lated radiation efficiency is 65%. The measured peak gain is 2.19 dBi and the
measured radiation efficiency is 64.1%. The slight differences between the simulated
and measured results are attributed to the textile material, which is soft and flexible.
 Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications 9
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Figure 12. Simulation and measured gain patterns at 1.8 GHz: (a) gain with respect to phi at
φ = 0°, (b) gain with respect to phi at φ = 90°, (c) gain with respect to theta at φ = 0°, and (d)
gain with respect to theta at φ = 90°.

Figure 13. Simulation and measured gain patterns at 2.4 GHz: (a) gain with respect to phi at
φ = 0°, (b) gain with respect to phi at φ = 90°, (c) gain with respect to theta at φ = 0°, and (d)
gain with respect to theta at φ = 90°.
 10 S. Choi and S. Lim

Table 1. Calculated upper bound of ECC at 1.8 and 2.4 GHz.

ith antenna 1 1 1 2 2 3
jth antenna 2 3 4 3 4 4
|ρij|max at 1.8 GHz 0.35 0.34 0.36 0.36 0.34 0.35
|ρij|max at 2.4 GHz 0.56 0.6 0.54 0.54 0.59 0.56

The diversity performance of the MIMO antenna array can be estimated by enve-
lope correlation coefficient (ECC).[6] ECC can be calculated using S parameters and
radiation efficiencies (ηrad). Equation (1) shows the expression of upper bound of ECC
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between antennas i and j.

S ii S ij  S ji S jj


qij

ffi


¼
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
max 









1  jS ii j2 
S ji
1 
S jj

S ij
gradi gradj

2 2 2


vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
!
u 
u 1 1
þ t 1 1 (1)
gradi gradj

The calculated upper bound of ECCs using Equation (1) at 1.8 and 2.4 GHz is listed in
the Table 1. In the event of practical system, a required value for good diversity
performance is |ρij|max < 0.8.[19] As shown in the Table 1, the proposed antenna array
satisfies this requirement.

Conclusion
In this paper, a novel foldable thin electro-textile antenna array has been proposed for
4 × 4 MIMO mobile router applications. Owing to the thin textile substrate, the array
can be folded. The 10-dB impedance bandwidth is satisfied from 1.4 to 5 GHz. The
overall size is reduced by the decoupling slits, and the isolation is higher than 15 dB
from 1.6 to 3.1 GHz. The measured radiation efficiency is 69.9%, and the peak gain is
1.07 dBi at 1.8 GHz. Additionally, the measured radiation efficiency is 64.1% and the
peak gain is 2.19 dBi at 2.4 GHz. The performances of the proposed antenna arrays are
stable even though the folding/unfolding process is repeated. The proposed antenna is
washable and can be used in realistic scenarios, such as on a wooden table, cloth, con-
crete floor, and stainless steel table. Therefore, the proposed textile antenna array is a
good candidate for future MIMO mobile routers and wearable computing applications.

Funding
This research was supported by the MSIP (Ministry of Science, ICT&Future Planning), Korea,
under the ITRC (Information Technology Research Center) support program (NIPA-2014-H0301-
14-1015) supervised by the NIPA (National ICT Industry Promotion Agency).

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