Washing reliability of painted, embroidered, and electro-textile wearable RFID tags

In this paper, we present textile antennas fabricated for wearable RFID applications by cutting from commercially available electro-textile, by sewing with conductive thread, and by painting with conductive paint on a 100% cotton fabric. The ready tags with attached ICs are coated with a protective encapsulant. The wireless performance of the tags is evaluated initially, after moisture testing in tap water, and after five washing cycles in a household washing machine. The initial read ranges of the electro-textile, embroidered, and painted tags are around 10, 6, and 4 meters, respectively. Based on the reliability testing results, the coating protects the components from moisture but the mechanical stress during washing cycles has a major effect on the tags' reliability.