A through wall doppler radar system: active textile antenna design, prototyping and experiment

Using garments as a platform for electronic sensing and communication systems opens up a wide range of novel and exciting applications. By carefully tailoring the antenna properties and by adopting a dedicated design strategy, a robust wearable antenna system can be obtained onto which all necessary electronics are integrated. In this contribution, the dedicated design for approach of a low-weight, wearable Doppler radar system fabricated on textile materials is presented. The system, fully integrated into a rescue worker's garment, is capable of detecting moving objects behind a barrier. It relies on an array of four textile transmit antennas to scan the surroundings. At the receiving end, an active wearable receive antenna is deployed to capture the reflected signals. It is demonstrated that the on-body system is capable of detecting moving subjects in indoor environments, including through-wall scenarios

Active textile antennas in professional garments for sensing, localisation and communication

New wireless wearable monitoring systems integrated in professional garments require a high degree of reliability and autonomy. Active textile antenna systems may serve as platforms for body-centric sensing, localization and wireless communication systems, in the meanwhile being comfortable and invisible to the wearer. New design strategies combined with dedicated signal processing techniques greatly enhance the robustness of these systems. On the one hand, the large amount of real estate available in public regulated services' garments may be exploited to deploy multiple textile antennas. On the other hand, the size of each radiator may be designed large enough to ensure high radiation efficiency when deployed on the body. This antenna area is then reused by placing active electronics directly underneath and energy harvesters directly on top of the antenna patch. We illustrate this design paradigm by means recent textile antenna prototypes integrated in professional garments, providing sensing, positioning and communication capabilities

Active textile antennas in professional garments for sensing, localisation and communication

New wireless wearable monitoring systems integrated in professional garments require a high degree of reliability and autonomy. Active textile antenna systems may serve as platforms for body-centric sensing, localisation, and wireless communication systems, in the meanwhile being comfortable and invisible to the wearer. We present a new dedicated comprehensive design paradigm and combine this with adapted signal-processing techniques that greatly enhance the robustness and the autonomy of these systems. On the one hand, the large amount of real estate available in professional rescue worker garments may be exploited to deploy multiple textile antennas. On the other hand, the size of each radiator may be designed large enough to ensure high radiation efficiency when deployed on the body. This antenna area is then reused by placing active electronics directly underneath and energy harvesters directly on top of the antenna patch. We illustrate this design paradigm by means of recent textile antenna prototypes integrated in professional garments, providing sensing, positioning, and communication capabilities. In particular, a novel wearable active Galileo E1-band antenna is presented and fully characterized, including noise figure, and linearity performance

Design of a Wearable, Low-Cost, Through-Wall Doppler Radar System

A novel, low-cost, low-weight, wearable Doppler radar system composed of textile materials and capable of detecting moving objects behind a barrier is presented. The system operates at 2.35 GHz and is integrable into garments, making it well-suited for usage in difficult to access terrain, such as disaster areas or burning buildings. Wearability is maximized by relying on flexible, low-weight, and breathable materials to manufacture the key parts of the system. The low-complexity Doppler radar system makes use of an array of four textile-transmit antennas to scan the surroundings. The beam emitted by this array is right-hand circularly polarized along all scanning angles and provides a measured gain of 9.2 dBi. At the receiving end, textile materials are used to develop an active wearable receive antenna, with 15.7 dBi gain, 1.1 dB noise figure, left-hand circular polarization, and a 3 dB axial ratio beamwidth larger than 50°. Several measurement setups demonstrate that the onbody system is capable of detecting multiple moving subjects in indoor environments, including through-wall scenarios