Incorporating Energy Harvesters in Robust Wearable SIW Antennas for Deployment in Protective Clothing

In the context of smart fabric interactive textile (SFIT) systems, textile antennas play a crucial role. For monitoring of rescue workers, these antennas should be energy efficient, low profile, and able to establish a stable wireless body-centric communication link. To achieve autonomous SFIT systems, it is highly advisable to integrate energy harvesters in the wearable antenna. Therefore, we examine the implications of integrating a kinetic energy harvester within a textile antenna. Furthermore, we explore the consequences of incorporating such an antenna system into protective clothing and analyze its performance when the system is deployed on different parts of the human body. Simulation and measurement results confirm a very stable on-body performance in four distinct deployment scenarios. Lastly, the specific absorption rate of the deployed antenna was found to be well below the limit of both the EU and US standards.