Functional Reliability Analysis of Self-Healing Passive UHF RFID Tag Under Mechanical Damage: Cutting and Stretching Effects

Abstract

Self-healing (SH) functional polymers, composites, and blends offer innovative solutions for developing fully soft, elastic electronics, antennas, and sensors with the ability to heal themselves. In this paper, we demonstrate, for the first time, the stretching performance and SH functionality of passive UHF RFID tags fabricated of SH elastomer blends. We analyzed the functionality of the passive UHF RFID tag based on a dipole antenna with different conductor thicknesses after being bisected and stretched. After completely bisected, 82.6% of the tag’s read range was regained within 24 hours, and it could be uniaxially stretched up to 75%. Our results provide important proof of concept for the development of stretchable and SH antennas, and wireless sensors. One of the most important aspects for future work is enhancing the performance of RFID tags under stretching by improving the bonding of the IC to the radiator with structural design that can also enable waterproofing, thereby making the tags suitable for wearable applications requiring washability.