Wearable Directional Button Antenna for On-Body Wireless Power Transfer

Abstract

For the future application of wireless power transfer on the human body, a wearable directional button antenna, composed of 2×3 artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) cells, is proposed, where the kinetic energy antenna is put on the elbow, which then charges the receiving communication antenna on the upper arm. The radiator of the button antenna is a monopole antenna, which is top-loaded by two cylindrical substrates with different radii to achieve a low profile, and it is fed by the microstrip line made by textiles, including 100% cotton substrate and conductive textile. The AMC cells are put close to the feeding microstrip line in order to realize directional radiation to the other side. Meanwhile, a real human arm model of a Chinese women is built to accurately analyze the corresponding wave propagations. Consequently, two identical antenna prototypes are fabricated, and the corresponding measurements are implemented, where an on-arm approximate measurement method for the radiation pattern is proposed. The measurements agree well with the simulations. Additionally, the influence of the communication antenna on the kinetic energy antenna and the interactions between the antenna and the arm are analyzed. Finally, the transmission efficiency and the SAR values are investigated.