Textile NFC antenna for power and data transmission across clothes

In this article, it is shown how a smartphone can be used together with an e-textile structure, such as smart clothing, or any other smart home textile structure, smart composite, etc, to power it and to send and receive data generated by the e-textile by using the magnetic induction phenomenon through textile materials. This has been achieved using the NFC communication protocol and NFC compatible fully textile antennas without any electronic components such as resistors, inductors or capacitors. Our NFC antennas have been realized by embroidery and geometrical shapes using conductive threads. All the antennas realized have been tested to show their capacity to send the power and to send and receive data from sensors, in particular by testing their resonant frequencies, which are 13.7 MHz and 13.83 MHz, and their quality factor, which are 45 and 55, respectively. The approach used in this work facilitates the design and production of smart textiles and their reliability and washability, as they do not need any more to be equipped with power supplies such as batteries and data acquisition and interface cards, that are not laundering and cleaning friendly and are very difficult to be realized on flexible structures making them textile compatible. Therefore, we believe that in the future, a smartphone placed in specific locations in our clothing (pockets) equipped with our antennas will help the development and the market readiness of future generations of smart textile structures. The realized prototypes will enable to create a sensor network by acting as a current extension transmitting power and data.