Reliability of washable wearable screen printed UHF RFID tags

• Wearable antennas have an enormous potential in versatile future applications.
• We manufactured UHF RFID tags by screen printing antennas on two different fabric substrates.
• We tested the effects of different types of washing cycles on their reliability.
• The tags remained wirelessly readable at the distances of beyond 1.3 m.

Wearable antennas have an enormous potential in future welfare, healthcare, and childcare applications. These applications require the antenna to be an integral and unnoticeable part of clothing and to be able to endure different environmental conditions and repeated washing. We manufactured UHF RFID tags by screen printing polymer thick film ink antennas on two different fabric substrates and tested the effects of different types of washing cycles on two key properties of wearable passive UHF RFID tags: threshold power and theoretical read range. Despite the detrimental impact of the washing cycles and detergents, the RFID tags remained wirelessly readable at the distances of beyond 1.3 m, which is satisfactory for many field applications.