Screen-Printed Fabric Antennas for Wearable Applications

In this paper, two antennas for wearable applications are presented, including the development of new antennas on fabric substrates for communication with in-body and outside the body sensors. The design process for fabrication via screen printing on fabric substrates is outlined using commercially available conductive inks. The effects of non-conductive, paint-based inks as interface layers between conductive elements and fabric substrates of coplanar keyhole fabric antennas is presented along with wash sustainability and its effects on antenna resonance at 5.8 GHz over time. Fabrication of screen-printed radio frequency identification tag antenna includes placement of the tag chip. Accessibility of the tag is assessed by comparing reader data to distance between the reader and the tag at 915 MHz.