Clothing-Integrated Passive RFID Strain Sensor Platform for Body Movement-Based Controlling

Abstract

This paper introduces the fabrication and wireless performance evaluation of a passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radiofrequency identification (RFID)-based strain sensor platform, which is designed for body movement-based human-technology interaction. The used RFID platform is fabricated from electro-textile materials and can thus be seamlessly integrated into clothing. A two-part antenna structure is utilized in this work to avoid the reliability challenges caused by mechanical stresses that clothing-integrated electronics need to endure. The fabricated sensor has an initial peak read range of 5 meters, which is an excellent result for on-body performance. Further, the platform is functional throughout the global UHF RFID frequency band. During elongation, the peak read range of the sensor has a significant decrease, but it is still readable from distances of 2.5 meters. Thus, this sensor can be read wirelessly from a convenient distance, when considering its practical use in body movement-based controlling of digital devices. The wireless performance of the sensor platform has a significant change caused by arm elongation, which based on our initial results can be clearly read from the changed backscattered signal. Thus, based on these preliminary results, our sensor platform shows potential as a passive clothing-integrated controller, which can turn simple gestures into inputs for digital devices.