111 research outputs found
A Wearable Fabric-Based RFID Skin Temperature Monitoring Patch
This paper presents a novel design of wearable radio frequency identification (RFID) sensor patch make of conductive fabric and integrated on clothes. The wearable RFID with similar design is also implemented on a Polyimide (PI) substrate to show the effectiveness of the system. We also demonstrate the wearable and washable RFID patch by using conductive fabric coil antenna as well as non-conductive fabric substrate. The conductive fabric offers great flexibility and comfortability as it can be sewed into clothes and connect the components of the patch. As a proof of concept, we developed the conductive fabric based RFID for temperature sensing and demonstrate its use by measuring variations in the skin temperature. We observed that the proposed antenna is strain independent during bending. Further, it has the advantage of simplicity and is relatively free from issues such as degradation of performance
Embroidery Leaf Shape Dipole Antenna Performances and Characterisation
In this paper, leaf shape textile antenna in ISM band has been chosen to study. The operating frequency of the dipole antenna is 2.45GHz. The effect of conductive threads with three different types of sewing has been analysed. The first type of sewing leaf shape dipole antenna is to stitch around itself and embroidered into a fleece fabric with circular follow by vertical and horizontal stitch respectively. From measured return loss, the antenna with circular stitch shows better performances with optimum resonances compared with the two types of stitching. The measured results confirm that the circular stitch is more suitable for leaf shape dipole antenna design. Thus it can be concluded that different stitch gives different results for leaf shape dipole antenna
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Detection of the Complete ECG Waveform with Woven Textile Electrodes
Wearable physiological monitoring systems are becoming increasingly prevalent in the push toward autonomous health monitoring and offer new modalities for playful and purposeful interaction within human computer interaction (HCI). Sensing systems that can be integrated into garments and, therefore, daily activities offer promising pathways toward ubiquitous integration. The electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is commonly monitored in healthcare and is increasingly utilized as a method of determining emotional and psychological state; however, the complete ECG waveform with the P, Q, R, S, and T peaks is not commonly used, due to the challenges associated with collecting the full waveform with wearable systems. We present woven textile electrodes as an option for garment-integrated ECG monitoring systems that are capable of capturing the complete ECG waveform. In this work, we present the changes in the peak detection performance caused by different sizes, patterns, and thread types with data from 10 human participants. These testing results provide empirically-derived guidelines for future woven textile electrodes, present a path forward for assessing design decisions, and highlight the importance of testing novel wearable sensor systems with more than a single individual.
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High performance flexible fabric electronics for megahertz frequency communications
This paper investigates the concept of using
conductive threads for fabricating electronics including antennas
at microwave frequencies. A number of commercial conductive
threads have been considered. Digital embroidery has been used
to create samples with different stitch types. This paper will
provide a wide range of practical advice about fabricating
samples using such materials. The threads have been examined
by assessing their DC resistances at rest and while under physical
strain and also the RF performance of transmission lines. The
results show there is a wide range in performance between
different conductive threads
Cotton fabric-based flexible electrode for electrocardiography
Early detection of heart abnormalities is one of the proposed methods to reduce number of death due to cardiovascular disease. Electrocardiography (ECG) is one of the commonly used methods in healthcare institution to monitor the heart condition. However, conventional ECG monitoring system is not suitable for longterm monitoring since it is bulky and experienced personnel is needed to interpret the ECG signal. In this study, flexible electrode and circuit using cotton fabric as the substrate material is proposed. Graphene-PEDOT:PSS ink which was synthesized via electrochemical exfoliation of graphite rod was used as the conductive material. The flexible electrode was fabricated using manual immersion of scoured fabric in the ink while wax patterning and pipetting methods were employed for fabrication of electrically conductive pattern for flexible circuit. Sheet resistance of the cotton fabric-based electrode coated with 5 layers of conductive ink is 75.9 Ω/sq. The ECG signal recorded using the cotton fabric-based electrode has similar features to that of using commercial silver/silver chloride electrode. On the other hand, the average resistance of as-fabricated 10 mm long and 1 mm wide conductive pattern is 128.68 Ω. The conductive pattern remained 42.1%, 41.1% and 53.6% of its conductance after 1000 bending cycles at bend radii of 0.50, 0.75 and 1.25 mm, respectively. Besides, the conductive pattern remained 70.4% and 50.8% of its conductance after 10 acute and obtuse folding cycles, respectively. A simple cotton fabric-based operational amplifier with gain of 1.67 was fabricated as an initial proof-of-concept for development of simple processing system on cotton fabric substrate
Development of Textile Antennas for Energy Harvesting
The current socio-economic developments and lifestyle trends indicate an increasing
consumption of technological products and processes, powered by emergent concepts, such as
Internet of Things (IoT) and smart environments, where everything is connected in a single
network. For this reason, wearable technology has been addressed to make the person, mainly
through his clothes, able to communicate with and be part of this technological network.
Wireless communication systems are made up of several electronic components, which over
the years have been miniaturized and made more flexible, such as batteries, sensors, actuators,
data processing units, interconnectors and antennas. Turning these systems into wearable
systems is a demanding research subject. Specifically, the development of wearable antennas
has been challenging, because they are conventionally built on rigid substrates, hindering their
integration into the garment. That is why, considering the flexibility and the dielectric
properties of textile materials, making antennas in textile materials will allow expanding the
interaction of the user with some electronic devices, by interacting through the clothes. The
electronic devices may thus become less invasive and more discrete.
Textile antennas combine the traditional textile materials with new technologies. They emerge
as a potential interface of the human-technology-environment relationship. They are becoming
an active part in the wireless communication systems, aiming applications such as tracking and
navigation, mobile computing, health monitoring and others. Moreover, wearable antennas
have to be thin, lightweight, of easy maintenance, robust, and of low cost for mass production
and commercialization.
In this way, planar antennas, the microstrip patch type, have been proposed for garment
applications, because this type of antenna presents all these characteristics, and are also
adaptable to any surface. Such antennas are usually formed by assembling conductive (patch
and ground plane) and dielectric (substrate) layers. Furthermore, the microstrip patch
antennas, radiate perpendicularly to a ground plane, which shields the antenna radiation,
ensuring that the human body is exposed only to a very small fraction of the radiation.
To develop this type of antenna, the knowledge of the properties of textile materials is crucial
as well as the knowledge of the manufacturing techniques for connecting the layers with glue,
seam, adhesive sheets and others. Several properties of the materials influence the behaviour
of the antenna. For instance, the bandwidth and the efficiency of a planar antenna are mainly
determined by the permittivity and the thickness of the substrate. The use of textiles in
wearable antennas requires thus the characterization of their properties. Specific electrical
conductive textiles are available on the market and have been successfully used. Ordinary
textile fabrics have been used as substrates. In general, textiles present a very low dielectric constant, εr, that reduces the surface wave
losses and increases the impedance bandwidth of the antenna. However, textile materials are
constantly exchanging water molecules with the surroundings, which affects their
electromagnetic properties. In addition, textile fabrics are porous, anisotropic and
compressible materials whose thickness and density might change with low pressures.
Therefore, it is important to know how these characteristics influence the behaviour of the
antenna in order to minimize unwanted effects.
To explain some influences of the textile material on the performance of the wearable
antennas, this PhD Thesis starts presenting a survey of the key points for the design and
development of textile antennas, from the choice of the textile materials to the framing of the
antenna. An analysis of the textile materials that have been used is also presented. Further,
manufacturing techniques of the textile antennas are described.
The accurate characterization of textile materials to use as a dielectric substrate in wearable
systems is fundamental. However, little information can be found on the electromagnetic
properties of the regular textiles. Woven, knits and nonwovens are inhomogeneous, highly
porous, compressible and easily influenced by the environmental hygrometric conditions,
making their electromagnetic characterization difficult. Despite there are no standard
methods, several authors have been adapting techniques for the dielectric characterization of
textiles. This PhD Thesis focuses on the dielectric characterization of the textile materials,
surveying the resonant and non-resonant methods that have been proposed to characterize the
textile and leather materials. Also, this PhD Thesis summarizes the characterization of textile
materials made through these methods, which were validated by testing antennas that
performed well.
Further a Resonant-Based Experimental Technique is presented. This new method is based on
the theory of resonance-perturbation, extracting the permittivity and loss tangent values based
on the shifts caused by the introduction of a superstrate on the patch of a microstrip antenna.
The results obtained using this method have shown that when positioning the roughest face of
the material under test (MUT) in contact with the resonator board, the extracted dielectric
constant value is lower than the one extracted with this face positioned upside-down. Based
on this observation, superficial properties of textiles were investigated and their influence on
the performance of antennas was analysed.
Thus, this PhD Thesis relates the results of the dielectric characterization to some structural
parameters of textiles, such as surface roughness, superficial and bulk porosities. The results
show that both roughness and superficial porosity of the samples influence the measurements,
through the positioning of the probes. Further, the influence of the positioning of the dielectric
material on the performance of textile microstrip antennas was analysed. For this, twelve
prototypes of microstrip patch antennas were developed and tested. The results show that,
despite the differences obtained on the characterization when placing the face or reverse-sides of the MUT in contact with the resonator board, the obtained average result of εr is well suited
to design antennas ensuring a good performance.
According to the European Commission Report in 2009, “Internet of Things — An action plan for
Europe”, in the next years, the IoT will be able to improve the quality of life, especially in the
health monitoring field. In the Wireless Body Sensor Network (WBSN) context, the integration
of textile antennas for energy harvesting into smart clothing is a particularly interesting
solution for a continuous wirelessly feed of the devices. Indeed, in the context of wearable
devices the replacement of batteries is not easy to practice. A specific goal of this PhD Thesis
is thus to describe the concept of the energy harvesting and then presents a survey of textile
antennas for RF energy harvesting. Further, a dual-band printed monopole textile antenna for
electromagnetic energy harvesting, operating at GSM 900 and DCS 1800 bands, is also proposed.
The antenna aims to harvest energy to feed sensor nodes of a wearable health monitoring
system. The gains of the antenna are around 1.8 dBi and 2.06 dBi allied with a radiation
efficiency of 82% and 77.6% for the lowest and highest frequency bands, respectively.
To understand and improve the performance of the proposed printed monopole textile antenna,
several manufacturing techniques are tested through preliminary tests, to identify promising
techniques and to discard inefficient ones, such as the gluing technique. Then, the influence
of several parameters of the manufacturing techniques on the performance of the antenna are
analysed, such as the use of steam during lamination, the type of adhesive sheet, the
orientation of the conductive elements and others. For this, seven prototypes of the printed
monopole textile antenna were manufactured by laminating and embroidering techniques.
The measurement of the electrical surface resistance, Rs, has shown that the presence of the
adhesive sheet used on the laminating process may reduce the conductivity of the conductive
materials. Despite that, when measuring the return loss of printed monopole antennas
produced by lamination, the results show the antennas have a good performance. The results
also show that the orientation of the conductive fabric does not influence the performance of
the antennas. However, when testing embroidered antennas, the results show that the
direction and number of the stitches in the embroidery may influence the performance of the
antenna and should thus be considered during manufacturing.
The textile antennas perform well and their results support and give rise to the new concept
of a continuous substrate to improve the integration of textile antennas into clothing, in a more
comfortable and pleasure way. A demonstrating prototype, the E-Caption: Smart and
Sustainable Coat, is thus presented. In this prototype of smart coat, the printed antenna is fully
integrated, as its dielectric is the textile material composing the coat itself. The E-Caption
illustrates the innovative concept of textile antennas that can be manipulated as simple
emblems. The results obtained testing the antenna before and after its integration into cloth,
show that the integration does not affect the behaviour of the antenna. Even on the presence
of the human body the antenna is able to cover the proposed resonance frequencies (GSM 900
and DCS 1800 bands) with the radiation pattern still being omnidirectional. At last, the exponential growth in the wearable market boost the industrialization process of
manufacturing textile antennas. As this research shows, the patch of the antennas can be easily
and efficiently cut, embroidered or screen printed by industrial machines. However, the
conception of a good industrial substrate that meets all the mechanical and electromagnetic
requirements of textile antennas is still a challenge. Following the continuous substrate
concept presented and demonstrated through the E-Caption, a new concept is proposed: the
continuous Substrate Integrating the Ground Plane (SIGP). The SIGP is a novel textile material
that integrates the dielectric substrate and the conductive ground plane in a single material,
eliminating one laminating process. Three SIGP, that are weft knitted spacer fabrics having one
conductive face, were developed in partnership with the Borgstena Textile Portugal Lda,
creating synergy between research in the academy and industry. The results of testing the
performance of the SIGP materials show that the integration of the ground plane on the
substrate changes the dielectric constant of the material, as a consequence of varying the
thickness. Despite this, after the accurate dielectric and electrical characterization, the SIGP
I material has shown a good performance as dielectric substrate of a microstrip patch antenna
for RF energy harvesting. This result is very promising for boosting the industrial fabrication of
microstrip patch textile antennas and their mass production and dissemination into the IoT
network, guiding future developments of smart clothing and wearables.Os atuais desenvolvimentos socioeconómicos e tendências de estilo de vida apontam para um
crescimento do consumo de produtos e processos tecnológicos, impulsionado por conceitos
emergentes como a Internet das Coisas, onde tudo tudo está conectado em uma única rede.
Por esta razão, as tecnologias usáveis (wearable) estão a afirmar-se propondo soluções que
tornam o utilizador possivelmente através das suas roupas, capaz de comunicar com e fazer
parte desta rede.
Os sistemas de comunicações sem fios são constituídos por diversos componentes eletrónicos,
que com o passar dos anos foram sendo miniaturizados e fabricados em materiais flexíveis, tais
como as baterias, os sensores, as unidades de processamento de dados, as interconexões e as
antenas. Tornar os sistemas de comunicações sem fios em sistemas usáveis requer trabalho de
investigação exigente. Nomeadamente, o desenvolvimento de antenas usáveis tem sido um
desafio, devido às antenas serem tradicionalmente desenvolvidas em substratos rígidos, que
dificultam a sua integração no vestuário. Dessa forma, considerando a flexibilidade e as
propriedades dielétricas dos materiais têxteis, as antenas têxteis trazem a promessa de
permitir a interacção dos utilizadores com os dispositivos eletrónicos através da roupa,
tornando os dispositivos menos invasivos e mais discretos.
As antenas têxteis combinam os materiais têxteis tradicionais com novas tecnologias e emergem
assim como uma potencial interface de fronteira entre seres humanos-tecnologias-ambientes.
Expandindo assim a interação entre o utilizador e os dispositivos eletrónicos ao recurso do
vestuário. Assim, através das antenas têxteis, o vestuário torna-se uma parte ativa nos sistemas
de comunicação sem fios, visando aplicações como rastreamento e navegação, computação
móvel, monitorização de saúde, entre outros. Para isto, as antenas para vestir devem ser finas,
leves, de fácil manutenção, robustas e de baixo custo para produção em massa e
comercialização.
Desta forma, as antenas planares do tipo patch microstrip têm sido propostas para aplicações
em vestuário, pois apresentam todas estas características e também são adaptáveis a qualquer
superfície. Estas antenas são geralmente formadas pela sobreposição de camadas condutoras
(elemento radiante e plano de massa) e dielétricas (substrato). Além disso, as antenas patch
microstrip irradiam perpendicularmente ao plano de massa, que bloqueia a radiação da antena,
garantindo que o corpo humano é exposto apenas a uma fração muito pequena da radiação.
Para desenvolver este tipo de antena, é crucial conhecer as propriedades dos materiais têxteis,
bem como as técnicas de fabricação para conectar as camadas, com cola, costuras, folhas
adesivas, entre outros. Diversas propriedades dos materiais influenciam o comportamento da
antena. Por exemplo, a permitividade e a espessura do substrato determinam a largura de banda e a eficiência de uma antena planar. O uso de têxteis em antenas usáveis requer assim
uma caracterização precisa das suas propriedades. Os têxteis condutores elétricos são materiais
específicos que estão disponíveis comercialmente em diversas formas e têm sido utilizados com
sucesso para fabricar o elemento radiante e o plano de massa das antenas. Para fabricar o
substrato dielétrico têm sido utilizados materiais têxteis convencionais.
Geralmente, os materiais têxteis apresentam uma constante dielétrica (εr) muito baixa, o que
reduz as perdas de ondas superficiais e aumenta a largura de banda da antena. No entanto, os
materiais têxteis estão constantemente a trocar moléculas de água com o ambiente em que
estão inseridos, o que afeta as suas propriedades eletromagnéticas. Além disso, os tecidos e os
outros materiais têxteis planares são materiais porosos, anisotrópicos e compressíveis, cuja
espessura e densidade variam sob muito baixas pressões. Portanto, é importante saber como
estas grandezas e características estruturais influenciam o comportamento da antena, de forma
a minimizar os efeitos indesejáveis.
Para explicar algumas das influências do material têxtil no desempenho das antenas usáveis,
esta Tese de Doutoramento começa por fazer o estado da arte sobre os pontos-chave para o
desenvolvimento de antenas têxteis, desde a escolha dos materiais têxteis até ao processo de
fabrico da antena. Além disso, a tese identifica e apresenta uma análise dos materiais têxteis
e técnicas de fabricação que têm sido utilizados e referidos na literatura.
A caracterização rigorosa dos materiais têxteis para usar como substrato dielétrico em sistemas
usáveis é fundamental. No entanto, pouca informação existe sobre a caracterização das
propriedades eletromagnéticas dos têxteis vulgares. Como já referido, os tecidos, malhas e
não-tecidos são materiais heterogéneos, altamente porosos, compressíveis e facilmente
influenciados pelas condições higrométricas ambientais, dificultando a sua caracterização
eletromagnética. Não havendo nenhum método padrão, vários autores têm vindo a adaptar
algumas técnicas para a caracterização dielétrica dos materiais têxteis. Esta Tese de
Doutoramento foca a caracterização dielétrica dos materiais têxteis, revendo os métodos
ressonantes e não ressonantes que foram propostos para caracterizar os materiais têxteis e o
couro. Além disso, esta Tese de Doutoramento resume a caracterização de dieléctricos têxteis
feita através dos métodos revistos e que foi validada testando antenas que apresentaram um
bom desempenho.
No seguimento da revisão, apresenta-se uma Técnica Experimental Baseada em Ressonância.
Esta nova técnica baseia-se na teoria da perturbação de ressonância, sendo a permitividade e
tangente de perda extraídas com base nas mudanças de frequência causadas pela introdução
de um superstrato no elemento radiante de uma antena patch microstrip. Os resultados de
caracterização obtidos através deste método revelam que, ao posicionar a face mais rugosa do
material em teste em contato com a placa de ressonância, o valor da constante dielétrica
extraída é inferior ao valor extraído quando esta face é colocada ao contrário. Com base nesta
observação, as propriedades estruturais da superfície dos materiais têxteis foram investigadas
e a sua influência no desempenho das antenas foi analisada. Assim, esta Tese de Doutoramento relaciona os resultados da caracterização dielétrica com
alguns parâmetros estruturais dos materiais, como rugosidade da superfície, porosidades
superficial e total. Os resultados mostram que tanto a rugosidade como a porosidade superficial
das amostras influenciam os resultados, que dependem assim do posicionamento do material
que está a ser testado. Também foi analisada a influência do posicionamento do material
dielétrico na performance das antenas têxteis tipo patch microstrip. Para isso, foram
desenvolvidos e testados doze protótipos de antenas patch microstrip. Os resultados mostram
que, apesar das diferenças observadas durante o processo de caracterização, o valor médio da
permitividade é adequado para a modelação das antenas, garantindo um bom desempenho.
De acordo com o relatório da Comissão Europeia, “Internet das Coisas - Um plano de ação para
a Europa”, emitido em 2009, nos próximos anos a Internet das Coisas poderá melhorar a
qualidade de vida das pessoas, nomeadamente pela monitorização da saúde. No contexto das
Redes de Sensores Sem Fios do Corpo Humano, a integração de antenas têxteis para recolha de
energia em roupas inteligentes é uma solução particularmente interessante, pois permite uma
alimentação sem fios e contínua dos dispositivos. De fato, nos dispositivos usáveis a substituição
de baterias não é fácil de praticar. Um dos objetivos específicos desta Tese de Doutoramento
é, portanto, descrever o conceito de recolha de energia e apresentar o estado da arte sobre
antenas têxteis para recolha de energia proveniente da Rádio Frequência (RF). Nesta tese, é
também proposta uma antena impressa do tipo monopolo de dupla banda, fabricada em
substrato têxtil, para recolha de energia eletromagnética, operando nas bandas GSM 900 e DCS
1800. A antena visa recolher energia para alimentar os nós de sensores de um sistema usável
para monitorização da saúde. Os ganhos da antena apresentada foram cerca de 1.8 dBi e 2.06
dBi, aliados a uma eficiência de radiação de 82% e 77.6% para as faixas de frequência mais
baixa e alta, respetivamente.
Para entender e melhorar o desempenho da antena impressa tipo monopolo de dupla banda em
substrato têxtil, várias técnicas de fabrico foram testadas através de testes preliminares, de
forma a identificar as técnicas promissoras e a descartar as ineficientes, como é o caso da
técnica de colagem. De seguida, analisou-se a influência de vários parâmetros das técnicas de
fabrico sobre o desempenho da antena, como o uso de vapor durante a laminação, o tipo de
folha adesiva, a orientação dos elementos irradiantes e outros. Para isto, sete protótipos da
antena têxtil monopolar impressa foram fabricados por técnicas de laminação e bordado.
As medições da resistência elétrica superficial, Rs, mostrou que a presença da folha adesiva
usada no processo de laminagem pode reduzir a condutividade dos materiais condutores. Apesar
disso, ao medir o S11 das antenas impressas tipo monopolo produzidas por laminagem, os
resultados mostram que as antenas têm uma boa adaptação da impedância. Os resultados
também mostram que a orientação do tecido condutor, neste caso um tafetá, não influencia o
desempenho das antenas. No entanto, ao testar antenas bordadas, os resultados mostram que
a direção e o número de pontos no bordado podem influenciar o desempenho da antena e,
portanto, estas são características que devem ser consideradas durante a fabricação. De um modo geral, as antenas têxteis funcionam bem e seus resultados suportam e dão origem
ao um novo conceito de substrato contínuo para melhorar a integração de antenas têxteis no
vestuário, de maneira mais confortável e elegante. A tese apresenta um protótipo
demonstrador deste conceito, o E-Caption: A Smart and Sustainable Coat. Neste protótipo de
casaco inteligente, a antena impressa está totalmente integrada, pois o seu substrato dielétrico
é o próprio mat
Smart Textiles Production
The research field of smart textiles is currently witnessing a rapidly growing number of applications integrating intelligent functions in textile substrates. With an increasing amount of new developed product prototypes, the number of materials used and that of specially designed production technologies are also growing. This book is intended to provide an overview of materials, production technologies, and product concepts to different groups concerned with smart textiles. It will help designers to understand the possibilities of smart textile production, so that they are enabled to design this type of products. It will also help textile and electronics manufacturers to understand which production technologies are suitable to meet certain product requirements
Development of Screen-Printable Flexible Circuits on Fabric Using Commercially Available Conductive
Over the past decades, electronics and silicon manufacturing have grown rapidly. Alongside this, the capability of integrated circuits (ICs) has significantly increased; modern electronics are becoming smaller and faster while also consuming less energy. Though there have been some developments with wearable devices and sensors, most consumer electronics still use printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication methods, making them inflexible or limited in flexibility, and thereby difficult to integrate into the fabric of clothing.
This thesis outlines a screen-printing method that utilizes inexpensive, commercially available conductive ink laid over fabric to make an entire functional and flexible printed circuit which will be referred to as Screen Printed Circuit (SPC). To achieve this goal, all designed are modeled in electronic Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. This task presents several challenges, including figuring out the physical properties of traces such as their resistance, clearance limit, resolution, ink penetration depth, and stretchability. Knowing these parameters, one can model and make useful and relevant electronic circuits. This thesis validates performance of this methodology by constructing and testing an array of passive low-pass and high-pass filters. The method is evaluated by several qualities: accuracy; solderability of the inked traces; ability to make custom resistors and capacitors; and durability. These measured quantities are compared with their theoretical counterparts.
Each developed SPC functions as intended and performs to within reasonable range of theoretical values across all important metrics. Further, the circuits are very flexible and perform as expected after being normally handled. This demonstrates that one can use these printed circuits in most low-speed applications where traditional (inflexible) PCBs are currently used, with minimal changes to design flow. Importantly, these printed circuits also demonstrate their ability to easily integrate into clothing, where PCBs are not typically appropriate.
It should be noted that the benefits of these flexible circuits do not come without some drawbacks. The conductive inks used in the traces have markedly higher resistivity than copper PCB traces, which decreases the power efficiency of the circuit. As well, the traces are brittle and show cracking after even moderate stretching, which further increased resistance. Future research should focus on potentially combining the thesis results with more complex and expensive methods that show improved reliability and deformability. For example, the developed methods could be combined with conducting threads or customized conductive polymer composites. Finally, developing additional custom resistors and capacitors would increase the range of circuits one can build with this method
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