Screen Printing Carbon Nanotubes Textiles Antennas for Smart Wearables. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Electronic textiles have become a dynamic research field in recent decades, attracting attention to smart wearables to develop and integrate electronic devices onto clothing. Combining traditional screen-printing techniques with novel nanocarbon-based inks offers seamless integration of flexible and conformal antenna patterns onto fabric substrates with a minimum weight penalty and haptic disruption. In this study, two different fabric-based antenna designs called PICA and LOOP were fabricated through a scalable screen-printing process by tuning the conductive ink formulations accompanied by cellulose nanocrystals. The printing process was controlled and monitored by revealing the relationship between the textiles' nature and conducting nano-ink. The fabric prototypes were tested in dynamic environments mimicking complex real-life situations, such as being in proximity to a human body, and being affected by wrinkling, bending, and fabric care such as washing or ironing. Both computational and experimental on-and-off-body antenna gain results acknowledged the potential of tunable material systems complimenting traditional printing techniques for smart sensing technology as a plausible pathway for future wearables.

published proceedings

  • Sensors (Basel)

altmetric score

  • 0.25

author list (cited authors)

  • Ibanez Labiano, I., Arslan, D., Ozden Yenigun, E., Asadi, A., Cebeci, H., & Alomainy, A.

citation count

  • 7

complete list of authors

  • Ibanez Labiano, Isidoro||Arslan, Dilan||Ozden Yenigun, Elif||Asadi, Amir||Cebeci, Hulya||Alomainy, Akram

publication date

  • July 2021

publisher