Fabrication and reliability evaluation of passive UHF RFID t-shirts

Abstract

In this paper, we present textile antennas fabricated for T-shirt RFID applications by cutting from commercially available electro-textile, by sewing with conductive thread, and by 3D printing with stretchable silver ink on a 100 % cotton fabric. The ready tags with attached ICs are coated with a protective stretchable encapsulant. The wireless performance of the T-shirt tags is evaluated initially as well as after seven washing cycles, followed by nine washing-drying cycles in a household washing and drying machines. The initial read ranges of all kinds of tags, when measured on-body, are around 3.5 meters. Based on the reliability testing results, the coating effectively protects the components from cyclic washing and drying.