GERMANY • The printed sensor platform of the competence centre Schreiner PrinTronics has won the OE-A Competition 2017 in the category “Prototypes & New Products. The prize for the complex label with electrical functions was awarded during the trade show LOPEC in Munich.
The yearly OE-A Competition encourages the development of visions for future applications incorporating organic and printed electronics. The prominent jurors especially highlighted that the RFID sensor platform goes far beyond the stage of a prototype and has been designed explicitly for roll-to-roll processes. The solution is therefore perfectly suited for automated processing and thus also for industrial mass production.
Using printed conductive paths, the RFID sensor platform combines a temperature sensor and a first-opening sensor with an NFC chip. Thanks to an imprinted NFC antenna, the chip allows for contactless readout with a smartphone equipped for this purpose. When the printed RFID sensor platform is used to seal a product pack the label performs two essential functions. By means of a sensor, it continuously records temperatures across the entire supply chain and stores the information throughout the label’s lifetime. A very thin, flexible battery embedded in the label enables such long-term data logging. There is also an integrated first-opening sensor which indicates in the corresponding smartphone app whether or not the label has been cut through and the box opened, exposing the contents to possible tampering.