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Wearable Antennas for Cross-Body Communication And Human Activity Recognition

Wenjing Su
Jiang Zhu
Huan Liao
Manos M. Tentzeris
Ieee Access (2020)

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel miniaturized wearable antenna (mosaic antenna) for cross-body communication featuring a superior performance compared to five commonly utilized wearable antenna topologies. The proposed mosaic antenna optimally excites the surface waves to enable cross-body communication yet still with a low profile and a miniaturized size. As a proof-of-concept of the unique capabilities of this antenna, an inkjet-printed flexible wearable prototype on Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, also known as Teflon) has been fabricated in a highly customizable, scalable and low-cost process and has been used as an enabler for human activities recognition coupled with machine learning techniques powered by Google TensorFlow. By utilizing proof-of-concept on-body networks consisting of mosaic antennas, human activity can be detected with an accuracy 91.9% for RF signal-based recognition techniques, despite the variability among different users and environments.