Impact of recurrent washing on the performance of electro-textile UHF RFID tags

Abstract

We present the simulation-based design of UHF RFID tags based on electro-textile antennas and analyze the impact of recurrent washing on their performance through measurements. The antennas were fabricated from silver plated stretchable fabric made of nylon and elastic fibers. We coated half of the tested samples with acrylic spray to compare the influence of recurrent washing on the performance of the coated and uncoated tags. The fully functional tags including the microchip were washed ten times in a household washing machine using a typical 40°C program and detergent. The performance of the tags was measured after each wash. Prior washing, the peak read ranges of the tags were over 5.5 m. After ten washing cycles, the read ranges of coated and non-coated tags were 1.5 m and 2.8 m, respectively.