Embroidered antennas and antenna-electronics interfaces for wearable RFID tags

Abstract

We summarize the possibilities of embroidery with conductive yarn in the fabrication of antennas and antenna-electronics interconnections for wearable RFID tags. Based on our results, both fabrication time and amount of conductive yarn used in fabrication of a dipole antenna can be saved by selecting dense or parse stitching for different regions of the antenna, or by sewing only the antenna borderline. Moreover, we fabricated the antenna-IC interconnection by sewing through the pads of the fixture carrying the IC during the antenna fabrication. Our wearable prototype tag showed excellent wireless performance, and was detectable at distances of 6 and 2 meters, in air and on the human body, respectively.