Tag diversity of inkjet printed body-worn radio frequency identification integrated medical sticking plasters for wireless monitoring

This Letter presents an investigation of radio frequency identification tags integrated with sticking plasters. Conductive ink is used in the fabrication to provide good compatibility with the plaster in terms of flexibility. The tag is proposed for use as a wireless platform for long-term patient monitoring in hospital environments. A motion capture system is used to test the directions in which the tag can be read to inform a diversity study establishing the number of tags required on-body to ensure reliable reading for applications such as medical monitoring. Tag diversity performance with various body movements is also studied. It is established that four tags give all round body coverage with only 4% loss in coverage for vertically polarised tags should one of them fail.