Demonstration of Asynchronous Serial Communication to Batteryless Modules on Conductive Textile

This demonstration shows a batteryless, wireless, and antennaless interconnection method for tiny circuit modules such as sensors, actuators, and LEDs. The modules are attached to a double-sided conductive textile without any point-to-point interconnection patterns. The textile is used as both a serial communication bus and a dc power rail. On the clothings such as T-shirts constructed with the conductive textile, tiny modules are powered and 1 Mb/s data transmission is allowed. The two conductive surfaces, isolated from each other, work as a transmission line that conveys dc power and high-frequency signals simultaneously. In the demonstration system, universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART), a serial communication protocol, is supported to transfer bitstreams from/to each module. Pin badge style modules can be easily attached to and detached from the textile. The proposed scheme is suitable for user-customizable distributed sensor/actuator wearable systems.