Estimation of the complex permittivity of building materials using a conformal conductive-textile microstrip patch antenna

Abstract

A conformal rectangular microstrip patch antenna was utilized to determine the dielectric constant of building materials at 2.4 GHz. The antenna was designed using flexible paper substrate and conductive textile. The material under test (MUT) was used as a superstrate to the patch antenna. To estimate the value of er of the superstrate, closed form expressions for multidielectric layer patch antennas found in the literature were applied. An average error of 5.2% between the estimated and actual values of er was achieved.