Washing Durability of PDMS-Conductive Fabric Composite: Realizing Washable UHF RFID Tags

In this letter, we present experimental investigations on washing durability of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-conductive fabric composite to validate its applicability for the realization of flexible wearable antennas that can withstand multiple washing cycles. For this purpose, we designed an ultra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE antennas and wireless propagation letters 2019-12, Vol.18 (12), p.2572-2576
Main Authors: Simorangkir, Roy B. V. B., Le, Duc, Bjorninen, Toni, Sayem, Abu Sadat Md, Zhadobov, Maxim, Sauleau, Ronan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antenna accessories
Antenna measurements
Antennas
Automatic identification
Bar codes
Coatings
Conductive fabric
Conductivity
Durability
Electronic components
Engineering Sciences
Fabrics
flexible antennas
Integrated circuits
Polydimethylsiloxane
polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)
Prototypes
Radio frequency identification
radio frequency identification (RFID)
recurrent washings
Silicone resins
tag antennas
textile antennas
Ultrahigh frequencies
Washing
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Summary:In this letter, we present experimental investigations on washing durability of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-conductive fabric composite to validate its applicability for the realization of flexible wearable antennas that can withstand multiple washing cycles. For this purpose, we designed an ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) passive tag antenna and fabricated several prototypes using such materials combination. Understanding the challenge of having a robust integration of a lumped electronic component (e.g., RFID IC) on a flexible antenna, a new way to improve the interconnection has also been investigated. The tag prototypes were subjected to recurrent machine-washing tests, and after each washing cycle, their performance was analyzed mainly in terms of the read range. The results reveal that, with a proper treatment on the antenna-IC fixture interconnection, the tag antennas developed with the PDMS-conductive fabric composite can maintain their performance very well, showing a minimum degradation in the read range after 15 cycles of washing.
ISSN:1536-1225
1548-5757
DOI:10.1109/LAWP.2019.2943535