Flexible and stretchable 3D printed passive UHF RFID tag

Abstract

The fabrication and analysis of a flexible and stretchable 3D printed passive ultra‐high frequency (UHF) radio‐frequency identification (RFID) tag are presented. The tag is fabricated on a flexible 3D printed Ninjaflex substrate and the conductive part of the tag consists of stretchable silver conductive paste dispensed with direct write method. The details of the 3D printing of the substrate, the characterisation of the substrate material at the UHF band, the direct write dispensing of the tag antenna, and the simulation and wireless measurement results of the fabricated tag are outlined. Moreover, to verify the flexibility and stretchability of the tag, strain reliability results of the tag are presented. Measurement results show that initially the manufactured tag achieves a 10.6 m read range. After 100 times of harsh stretching, the read range is still 7.4 m. Overall, the performance of the tag is robust and concludes that the fabrication methodology can be used in the manufacturing of RFID tags for future identification and sensing applications.

Flexible Antennas: A Review

“…In the UHF spectrum, antennas for smart cards and RFID tags dominate. Flexible RFID tags for non-invasive sensor applications like patient tracking in the medical system, internet of things (IoT) devices, childcare centers, humidity, and temperature sensing have been reported [ 133 , 134 , 135 , 136 ].…”

Applications of Microwave Materials: A Review

“…But, due to its highly toxic nature, it is not recommended in electronic circuits. Therefore, other alternatives such as NaK alloy, 85 galinstan 85 and stretchable silver conducting paste 94 were proposed in literature. Galinstan is a liquid metal alloy of gallium, indium, tin and trace amounts of other elements.…”

“…Rizwan et al fabricated a stretchable UHF RFID tag using the 3D printing technique. 94 Stretchable silver paste and Ninja Flex were used as the conducting material and substrate, respectively. Liquid crystals are used to control the phase shift of elements in phased array by varying the DC voltage across the liquid crystal.…”

Circularly Polarized Wearable Antenna Based on NinjaFlex-Embedded Conductive Fabric

“…e substrate's thickness is h s , its dielectric permittivity is 3.0, and its loss tangent is 0.06 [15]. e NinjaFlex has been used in flexible antennas and RFID [16][17][18].…”