A reconfiguration module with coplanar snap-on connection for wearable textile antennas

Abstract

A reconfiguration module based on a small printed circuit board (PCB) and commercial snap-on buttons for reconfigurable flexible textile antennas is proposed. The concept consists of a small PCB loaded with a reconfigurable circuitry including active and lumped components, which is combined with a pair of commercial male snap-on buttons for electrical connection to conductive textiles. The reconfiguration module can provide a secure and robust coplanar electrical connection between rigid electronics and flexible textile conductors, which is usually challenging for textile antennas. To validate this module concept, a frequency-reconfigurable planar inverted-F antenna using a varactor-based module realization is designed and simulated. The antenna is predicted to exhibit a frequency tuning range of 24.9% from 2.14 to 2.75 GHz with efficiency from 60.1% to 89.4%.