Flexible and Stretchable Antenna Using Corrugated Copper-Clad Polyimide and Beyolex Film

Copper-clad polyimide film (CCPF) is combined with Beyolex transparent film to realize a lightweight flexible, stretchable, and foldable antenna. The antenna is designed for 1.20 GHz using a corrugated patch and the ground plane using CCPFs. The corrugations on both sides of the antenna facilitate complete bending in both concave and convex directions. The antenna is fabricated and tested for various bending and stretching scenarios. The antenna has an impedance bandwidth (IBW) of 2.0% and gain of 7.8 dBi at 1.20 GHz under normal conditions. The antenna is tested by conforming it to cylinders with radius <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$R_{c}$</tex> = 200, 160, 100, 80, 40, and 20 mm. The antenna gain values are slightly reduced from 7.8 dBi to 6.2 dBi while reducing <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$R_{c}$</tex> from 200 mm to 40 mm. The antenna resonant frequency shifts from 1.20 GHz to 1.21 GHz when applying a strain of 6.3% to 18.8%.