A robust wearable textile SIW RFID antenna

A wearable textile Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag realized on a substrate integrated waveguide cavity is presented, operating in the European UHF RFID frequency band. The antenna shows a very good isolation with respect to the human body, and a satisfactory robustness to antenna-body distance variations. The resulting tag is very compact, since its size has been reduced by exploiting the symmetry of a SIW cylindrical resonant cavity and obtaining an eighth mode SIW antenna, and can be produced at low-cost through simple manufacturing processes

Finger Worn UHF Far Field RFID Tag Antenna

This paper presents the design and measurement of an experimental passive UHF RFID tag worn as a ring with applications particularly in healthcare or secure environments. Three sizes of rings were designed for the European UHF RFID band over two different substrates at varying heights off the skin. Designing effective body mounted antennas for passive RFID is very challenging, particularly when mounted directly upon the skin. The rings were simulated with a commercial electromagnetic simulation software and then constructed and tested on an adult male ring finger over several angles of RF illumination so that read ranges and directivity could be determined. Main beam read distances between 2 and 5m where achieved dependent on the ring substrate height

A Wearable Textile RFID Tag Based on an Eighth-Mode Substrate Integrated Waveguide Cavity

A novel wearable textile Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag based on an eighth-mode substrate integrated waveguide cavity is presented. Antenna size reduction for effective operation in the [865-870]-MHz RFID UHF band is obtained by exploiting the H-field symmetry planes of a cylindrical Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) cavity. High isolation from the human body and excellent robustness with respect to variations in antenna-body distance are achieved using an energy-based design strategy, aiming to reduce ground plane size. The resulting tag exhibits very low manufacturing complexity and may be produced at low-cost. Design and simulations were performed using CST Microwave Studio, and a prototype of the tag has been manufactured and tested in a real environment

Development and Testing of Split-ring Antennas for Wearable Electro-textile UHF RFID Tags

Wireless body area network(WBAN) is developed from personal area network that helps different sensors to communicate while being worn on human body. The passive UHF (Ultra-high frequency) RFID (Radio frequency identification technology) is one of the fundamental technology used for tracking animals, people and objects. Currently, an emerging area of development is the use of wearable RFID tags in health care systems. The personal healthcare systems demand information about sensed or measured biological parameters to be reliable and rapidly sent over a wireless communication link for investigation purposes. Furthermore, the communication system must be absolutely flexible, low-power, maintenance-free and low-cost in order to be utilized on different parts of the patient’s body for continuous monitoring of physiological parameters such as blood pressure, body temperature, glucose level, and respiration system. Therefore, due to the extensive need for the implementation on flexible and conformal material, researchers have been working on textile based RFID tags. One of the hottest topics is the development of electro-textile based RFID tags for body area networks. In this thesis, to measure the performance of wearable split ring antennas on electro-textile material, different split ring antennas have been developed that are materialized with two different kinds of materials such as copper and electro-textile. The development of wearable antenna is quite challenging task due to antenna material properties, environmental issues and radiation absorbing nature of human body at higher frequencies. By considering these factors, 85% antenna-IC power transfer efficiency at 915MHz has been achieved in body-worn configuration. Furthermore, to analyze the near body performance of developed antenna, distance between antenna and the human body has been varied, for example 2 mm, 3mm, 5mm and air. Moreover, to measure the performance of antenna on clothes, EPDM (Ethylene-Propylene-Diene-Monomer) substrate of different thicknesses i.e 2mm and 5mm have been used. From the simulated and measured results, it has been noticed that copper based split ring UHF RFID tag shows excellent match between measured and simulated results in body-worn configuration. Furthermore, provides excellent tag performance at variable antenna-body separations down to two millimeters and also in the air. Interestingly, this is novel feature of wearable antennas based on a single conductor layer. On the other hand, it has been analyzed that electro-textile based split ring RFID tag shows some variation between simulated and measured on-body/off-body results

Wearable passive UHF RFID tag based on a split ring antenna

We present the development and performance evaluation of a wearable passive UHF RFID tag based on a split ring antenna that is electromagnetically optimized for operation in the close proximity of the human body. The antenna is composed of a single conductor layer and created on a light-weight textile substrate. Our results show that the split ring antenna provides stable performance for the tag placed at different distances from the body, as well as in air. This is an advantageous feature for cloth-integrated tags with generally unspecified antenna-body separation.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

Clothing-Integrated Human-Technology Interaction

Due to the different disabilities of people and versatile use environments, the current handheld and screen-based digital devices on the market are not suitable for all consumers and all situations. Thus, there is an urgent need for human- technology interaction solutions, where the required input actions to digital devices are simple, easy to establish, and instinctive, allowing the whole society to effortlessly interact with the surrounding technology. In passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, the tag consists only of an antenna and a simple integrated circuit (IC). The tag gets all the needed power from the RFID reader and can be thus seamlessly and in a maintenance-free way integrated into clothing. In this thesis, it is presented that by integrating passive UHF RFID technology into clothing, body movements and gestures can be monitored by monitoring the individual IDs and backscattered signals of the tags. Electro-textiles and embroidery with conductive thread are found to be suitable options when manufacturing and materials for such garments are considered. This thesis establishes several RFID- based interface solutions, multiple types of inputs through RFID platforms, and controlling the surrounding and communicating with RFID-based on/off functions. The developed intelligent clothing is visioned to provide versatile applications for assistive technology, for entertainment, and ambient assistant living, and for comfort and safety in work environments, just to name a few examples