EMBEDDED ELECTRONICS IN COMPOSITES USING CONDUCTIVE AND MAGNETIC FABRICS

VAlue proposition

There is a need for assembling miniaturized and embedded electronics into the vehicle bodies for light weight, mechanical stability and wireless technologies. Non-metallic/composite body structures enable embedded antennas and circuits. This technology relates to the packaging of concealed electronics [active and passive circuits] embedded inside multilayered automotive composite hoods (planar/conformal surfaces) including a novel way of integrating conductive fabric circuit designs for various applications such as sensing, authentication, Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication and adverse weather conditions.

 

Description of Technology

 

The technology uses an infusion process for fiberglass fabric circuit designs. Passive RFID fabric tags (915 MHz) with an interrogator system and packaging of fabric tags with composites has been demonstrated. The packaged tags on the composite hood structure with stored information are read through an interrogator system at various orientations. The read range distances with received signal strength indicator (RSSI) at various tag orientation measurements were demonstrated for sensing and identification of Electronic Product Code (EPC) and user memory data. Overall, the tags perform with greater distances, excellent received signal strength and less signal interference. Thus, secure data transfer via readers from remote areas can be used to detect vehicular body parts, location, lifetime, mechanical integrity and stored information in sensor RFIDs. Various fabric circuit designs such as transmission line structures, patch antennas, patch array antenna, monopole folded coplanar waveguide (CPW) antenna, T-line and circular ring resonators were packaged at various frequency bands. The mesh within the fabric antenna allows for the resin/matrix to penetrate and connect the two layers, thereby ensuring proper bond between the two interlayers of the composite

 

 

Benefits

  • Low-cost
  • Lightweight
  • Replaceable auto parts
  • Mission specific circuit integration
  • Mechanical stability

 

Applications

  • composite structures
  • embedded electronics
  • automotive
  • aerospace

 

IP Status

Patent Pending

 

LICENSING RIGHTS AVAILABLE

Full licensing rights available

 

Developer: Premjeet Chahal et al.

 

Tech ID: TEC2025-0120

 

For more information about this technology,
contact Raymond DeVito Ph. D. at devitora@msu.edu or 1(517)884-1658

 

Patent Information: