Integrating RFID Transponders into Fibre-Reinforced Plastics by Using Textile Production Technology

Fibre-reinforced plastics are an important class of lightweight materials that find one focus of application in the aeronautics industry. Within the efforts of improving the cost-effectiveness of those materials, special attention has to be paid to the production, which accounts for the biggest fraction of a part's costs. In order to improve material and information flows in production environments, the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is an enabler to enhance efficiency and productivity. Therefore, this contribution describes how RFID transponders can be integrated into fibre-reinforced plastics. Textile production technology is used to accomplish this task. Furthermore, the integrated RFID transponders are characterized in terms of electric properties.