Enabling Technologies for Electrical Circuits on a Woven Monofilament Hybrid Fabric

Abstract

Electronic Fabrics is an emerging topic in the field of Smart Textiles. This paper discusses potential technologies to embed electronic circuits into fabrics. Our approach focused on a woven fabric with unobtrusively embedded copper wires that guaranteed usual wearing comfort. Manufacturing, electrical, as well as mechanical aspects of our technologies, were addressed. We explain how interconnects and wiring structures were established within the fabric. Wiring structures were specified by DC resistance, frequency response and line impedance Z0. Our measurements revealed flat frequency responses up to 2 GHz and line impedances in the range of 250 Ω for textile transmission lines. Eventually, we showed that our fabric equipped with electronics withstood the tensile stresses and humidity impacts of daily usage. The presented technologies allow realization and wiring of medium-sized electronic circuits on fabrics with signal frequencies up to several 100 MHz.