Formulating and Manufacturing Low Profile Integrated Batteries for Wireless Sensing Labels

我们试图创造出与现有电子产品不同的保形传感器，这些传感器利用增材制造实现的超薄外形，提供具有传感、无线通信和能量收集功能的柔性标签，为完全集成的电池充电。为了实现这一目标，我们必须重新设计天线和电池（无线系统中最大的设备，由于紧密集成而效率低下）。我们的电池辅助标签将使用可持续墨水和可回收材料印刷，以实现循环经济。它们将在比被动替代品更远的距离上进行通信，并实现“对物体”或“对皮肤”监测，例如大气蒸汽或医疗检测。成功的结果将提供前所未有的数据，即贴即忘智能标签，可以通过套印不同的传感薄膜来定制。为了实现这一目标，我们领先的无线，电池配方和数字制造研究人员团队将与英国国家印刷电子弹射器相结合。以前提出的用于智能连接生态系统的无电池（无源）超高频RFID标签传感器在功能上是有限的（例如，没有数据记录或模拟到数字接口），通信范围是几米或更短。这种限制是由于需要获得足够的能量而产生的。电池将克服范围和功能限制，但代价是由于电池体积，包括支架尺寸，以及导电电池外壳和天线之间需要的物理分离，以保持辐射效率。此外，数百万个包含电池配方中常用材料的普遍传感标签的寿命结束也会产生严重影响。由于这些限制和相互连接独立组件的期望，永远不可能生产出真正薄的标签式电源辅助电子产品。我们提出的标签在运行时本身就具有低能耗，但集成电池辅助将使许多潜在应用成为可能，包括生物传感、制药智能监控和患者合规、安全、工业和家庭化学、温度和电力监控，并为智能连接系统的新兴大数据节点实现加密。为了确保这项工作的可交付产出，我们将专注于创建概念验证蒸汽传感标签，以满足两个已确定的需求。1. 我们将开发标签来感知空气污染，众所周知，空气污染会降低生活质量，并通过酸雨攻击基础设施。2. 我们将为我们的合作伙伴奇华顿确定的工业过程和产品测试创建大气传感标签。由RFID工程师、功能材料科学家、喷墨专家和国家印刷电子弹射器组成的团队将在电池基板上设计高效天线，展示超薄电池的化学性质，适用于增材制造，提供类似于商业硬币电池的性能，创造用于打印薄膜氮氧化物传感器的墨水，通过喷墨打印创建原型传感无线标签。并使用商业卷对卷技术生产设备的试运行。我们的设计将集成到一个演示系统中，该系统可以读取标签并以可访问的方式显示结果。

We seek to create conformal sensors unlike existing electronics that exploit the ultra-thin form factor achieved by additive manufacture to offer flexible labels with sensing, wireless communication and energy harvesting to charge entirely integrated batteries. To achieve this, we must re-engineer antennas and batteries (the largest devices in wireless systems and which suffer poor efficiency from close integration). Our battery-assisted labels will be printed using sustainable inks with reclaimable materials for the circular economy. They will communicate at distances greater than passive alternatives and enable 'on object' or 'on-skin' monitoring, e.g. of atmospheric vapours or medical testing. Successful outcomes will provide unprecedented data from attach-and-forget smart labels that can be customised by overprinting with different sensing films. To achieve this our team of leading Wireless, Battery Formulation, and Digital Manufacturing researchers, will combine with the UK National Catapult for Printed Electrics. Previous battery-free (passive) UHF RFID based tag sensors proposed for smart connected ecosystems are inherently limited in their functionality (e.g. no data logging or analog to digital interface) and the communication range is a few metres or less. This limitation arises through the need to harvest sufficient power. A battery would overcome the range and functionality limitations, but at the cost of overall bulk due to battery volume, including holder size , and the physical separation needed between the conducting battery casing and the antenna in order to maintain radiation efficiency. Also, there are serious implications for the end of life of millions of pervasive sensing labels containing the materials commonly used in battery formulation. With these constraints and the expectation of interconnecting separate components, it will never be possible to produce truly thin label-like power-assisted electronics. The labels we propose will be inherently low energy in operation, but integrated battery assistance will make possible many potential applications including bio-sensing, pharma smart monitoring & patient compliance, security, industrial and domestic chemical, temperature, & power monitoring, and enable encryption in emerging big data nodes for Smart Connected Systems. To ensure deliverable outputs in this work, we will focus on creating proof of concept vapour sensing tags to address two identified needs. 1. We will develop labels to sense air pollution which is well known to reduce quality of life and attacks infrastructure through acid rain. 2. We will create atmospheric sensing labels for industrial processes and product testing as identified by our partner Givaudan. The team of RFID engineers, functional materials scientists, inkjet experts and the national Catapult for printed electronics will engineer efficient antennas on battery substrates, demonstrate ultrathin battery chemistries, suitable for additive manufacture that offer performance similar to commercial coin cells, create inks to print thin film Nitrogen Oxide sensors, create prototype sensing wireless labels by inkjet printing, and produce test runs of the devices using commercial roll-to-roll techniques. Our designs will be integrated into a demonstrator system that can read the tags and display results in an accessible way.