A Critical Review: Design and Fabrication of Flexible Antenna

With the advancement of smart textiles, the incorporation of electronics and interconnections with fabrics introduced electronic textiles (e-textiles) in an intrinsic way in a manner whereby the physical flexibility and dimensional size of textiles cannot be achieved by other existing electronic manufacturing techniques, and therefore the components of smart textiles are less visible and not susceptible of being tangled or snagged by objects around them. E-textiles demonstrates high adaptability in both sensing as well as computational to meet the requirements of specific applications, which facilitates the power management and context awareness. The promising future of electronic systems is being integrated into our daily outfits and characterized by their ability to monitor wearers' behavioral status and surroundings automatically, further adjusting the configuration and functionality of systems according to the information; thus, these electronic should meet basic requirements with regards to wearability, among which, flexible antenna is one of the applications that is advanced in energy transmission. This review concentrates on recent developments in design and fabrication of smart textiles, especially wearable antenna and pay great attention to the materials and their manufacturing techniques. Processing of textile production such as weaving, knitting and sewing are possible ways to feature the electronics to be wearable, and each technique encompasses advantages and disadvantages of varying degrees. The aim of this review is to balance the compromise between integration, flexibility, ergonomics, low-power consumption and ultimately autonomy.