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Wearable Textile Antenna Breakthrough

Researchers at The Ohio State University have reached a milestone in the development of wearable electronics - they are able to embroider antennas and circuits into fabric with 0.1 mm precision, which is the perfect size to integrate electronic components such as sensors and computer memory devices into clothing. With this advance, the researchers have taken the next step toward the design of functional textiles - clothes that transmit digital information. The technology could lead to shirts that act as antennas for your smart phone or tablet, workout clothes that monitor your fitness level, or a bandage that tells your doctor how well the tissue beneath it is healing. One prototype antenna looks like a spiral and can be embroidered into clothing to improve cell phone signal reception. Another prototype, a stretchable antenna with an integrated RFID chip embedded in rubber, takes the applications for the technology beyond clothing.

Topics:
Antennas Data Acquisition Data Acquisition Electronics & Computers Internet of Things Manufacturing & Prototyping Medical Monitoring Patient Monitoring RF & Microwave Electronics Semiconductors & ICs Sensors Test & Measurement

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    Transcript

    00:00:09 [Music] okay we just lower the foot and with a push of a button we'll start printing the design basically hi I'm Aina CTI I'm a senior researcher here at Ohio State at the electro science lab and yeah this is our work on textile antennas and circuits with our latest accomplishment being to to improve the accuracy down .1 mm so in

    00:01:04 this case we integrate an antenna a dipole antenna into the Ohio State logo so here's the antenna just this is one arm of the dipole and this is the second arm uh what we see in front is the logo so in this case for example could put this logo on a T-shirt and can it Place Nerf ID for example with information uh like details about the sort of t-shirt you are wearing or who you are like a

    00:01:27 name tag like someone can scan or it can be simple antenna that just transmits information from sensors on the body to like cell phones or remote devices I think the applications are abound a project we have is to be able to track fluids in the lungs that can prevent heart attacks or you have a tumor somewhere that you want to track that will be able to be done as well it's

    00:01:51 basically something that is even fun particularly for children let's say wearing the emblems of the university the emblems of their school and at the same time being functionalized and it tells them their identity so hopefully when you go to conference and when you go somewhere uh you wear your ID and you will be an emblem that you're wearing and you will have all the information

    00:02:13 maybe maybe more than you like to share but uh so I think eventually what we look forward to is to have circuitry memory as well as Computing functionality to be embedded within wearable circuits so this is like5 MM accuracy 3 mm accuracy And1 mm accuracy that's the first accomplishment second one is to make stretchable prototypes that was a huge challenge because the

    00:02:38 thread it's not stretchable and the fabric is not stretchable either so that's something we are trying to patent right now and the idea was to get rid of the fabric completely we just melted basically the fabric uh integrated in stretch polymer so it can do stretchability and the third Recon accomplishment is to integrate color so we can build a logo or anything colorful

    00:03:00 and make it look more intrusive basically so these are the three latest accomplishments again the unique features of these are not only that we've achieved a 01 millimet accuracy which is very similar to the you know classical uh metallic circuits that we have so therefore they're comparable in terms of accuracy but in addition to that they are also having a conductivity

    00:03:21 which is comparable to copper and but at the same time they are washable they can be embedded with electronics uh so it's a more integrated connectivity I've been working all these years uh in integrating electromagnetics and antennas with real life applications and particularly applications related to the body no matter if they are inside the body or outside the body uh so take

    00:03:44 style antennas or the best way to achieve flexibility and have unobtrusive garments like smart garments smart functionalities so pursuing both ways improve the technology on one side and develop specific applications on the other side uh I think there's just so many things to be done but it will take time but the interest is there so we we think it's it's going to happen

    00:04:14 [Music] [Music]