Printed smart fabric antennas

Smart fabrics can sense and react to stimuli from the environment; the everyday fabric is modified to incorporate sensors/actuators/electronics.

The fabric’s primary function (eg clothing) is therefore given a second high value-added function.

Technological advantages of fabric antennas

• The fabric antenna is easily integrated into clothing or may form part of the structure of a vehicle or building
• The fabric antenna is lightweight
• Fabrics are flexible and bendable, facilitating ease of transportation

Technological advantages of printing

• Printing offers the capability of producing multiple identical or different devices from a wide range of materials with low materials wastage since it is an additive process.
• The printed layers can be deposited anywhere on the fabric in any geometric layout and therefore printing offers almost complete design freedom.
• The printed layers do not need to contribute to the garment’s form or functionality; this is a constraint with approaches using functionalised yarns.
• The functional material is deposited only where required, which also ensures that overall fabric breathability/flexibility is not compromised by the printed layers.

Technology roadmap

Since 2008, the University of Southampton has developed a number of printable pastes to achieve printing functional electronic devices on fabrics. With these, we have fabricated antenna structures on fabric.

2008-2012: MICROFLEX: EU integrated project www.microflex.ecs.soton.ac.uk/

2013-2016: CREATIF: EU project www.creatif.ecs.soton.ac.uk/

Collaboration opportunity

We welcome collaboration with industrial partners.

If you would like to know more, please contact John Tudor mjt@ecs.soton.ac.uk