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. 2020 Jun 30;20(13):3658.
doi: 10.3390/s20133658.

Paving the Way to Eco-Friendly IoT Antennas: Tencel-Based Ultra-Thin Compact Monopole and Its Applications to ZigBee

María Elena de Cos Gómez  1 , Humberto Fernández Álvarez  1 , Alicia Flórez Berdasco  1 , Fernando Las-Heras Andrés  1
Affiliations

Paving the Way to Eco-Friendly IoT Antennas: Tencel-Based Ultra-Thin Compact Monopole and Its Applications to ZigBee

María Elena de Cos Gómez et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

An ultrathin, compact ecofriendly antenna suitable for IoT applications around 2.45 GHz is achieved as a result of exploring the use of Tencel fabric for the antenna's design. The botanical ecofriendly Tencel is electromagnetically characterized, in terms of relative dielectric permittivity and loss tangent, in the target IoT frequency band. To explore the suitability of the Tencel, a comparison is conducted with conventionally used RO3003, with similar relative dielectric permittivity, regarding the antenna dimensions and performance. In addition, the antenna robustness under bent conditions is also analyzed by measurement. To assess the relevance of this contribution, the ultrathin ecofriendly Tencel-based antenna is compared with recently published antennas for IoT in the same band and also, with commercial half-wave dipole by performing a range test on a ZigBee-based IoT testbed.

Keywords: ZigBee; antenna for IoT; compact antenna; ecofriendly antenna; energy efficient antenna; flexible antenna; green antenna; sustainable fabrics; textile antenna; wearable antenna.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Substrates for the compact coplanar waveguide CPW-fed monopole: (a) RO3003 and (b) Tencel fabric.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Stages in obtaining the Tencel fabric and a close-up view of a piece of Tencel.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Geometry of the compact CPW-fed monopole antenna.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Reflection coefficient results, S11(dB), obtained in the simulation for the compact CPW-fed monopole on RO3003 and Tencel.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Surface current distribution for the compact CPW-fed slot monopole at the center frequency of the operative band (2.54 GHz) and at two frequencies (1 and 3.3 GHz) outside the operative band (without proper impedance matching).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Radiation pattern obtained in the simulation for the compact CPW-fed monopole on Tencel at 2.54 GHz: (a) Three-dimensional pattern, (b) Antenna arrangement to simulate its radiation properties and (c) radiation pattern cuts for Phi = 0° and Phi = 90°. The blue traces stand for copolarization (CP) and the green ones for cross-polarization (XP).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Fabricated prototypes of the CPW-fed monopole antenna on (a) RO3003 and (b) Tencel. The results for the reflection coefficient, S11(dB), in the simulation and measurement for the prototypes are shown.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Reflection coefficient results for the compact CPW-fed monopole on Tencel, measured under flat and bent conditions using a foam cylinder of radius R = 25 mm.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Setup for the range test on a ZigBee-based IoT platform: (a) XBee Pro module with loopback, (b) half-wave dipole and (c) Tencel-based monopole.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Results of the range test on the ZigBee-based IoT platform using the 0 × 11 channel obtained with the XCTU software.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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