Airbrushed Dipole RF Strain Sensor Antenna on a Stretchable Polyurethane Substrate

We present a novel dipole strain sensor antenna that has been fabricated on a highly stretchable polyurethane substrate by airbrushing a diluted commercially available ink PE872 in comparison with the screen printing using PE872 and CI-1036, both are commercially available silver inks. The frequency sensitivity with strain of sensors fabricated with airbrushing is 36.3 Mflz/strain” while that of sensors fabricated with screen printing is 31.2 Mflz/strain'zs. The sensitivity of the airbrushed strain sensor reduced by 4.1% after 1000 cycles of 5% strain. SEM images are used to characterize the microscopic morphology differences between the screen printed and airbrushed samples before and after the cyclic strain.