Possibilities of Self-Healing UHF RFID Sensor Tags in Biomedical and Bionic Applications

Self-healing functional polymers, composites, and blends have the potential to provide cutting-edge solutions for fully soft and elastic electronics, antennas and sensors, enabling them to spontaneously heal themselves. It is expected that multifunctional self-healing polymers will have several paradigm shifting applications in biomedicine and bionics, such as self-healing electronic skin (eSkin) and self-healing wireless biomedical implants. In these systems, RFID-based communication methods will provide an important development platform. The work presented in this paper provides proof-of-concept in the development of self-healing antennas, sensors and electronics. In addition to the first prototypes of self-healing tag antennas, we have demonstrated direct attachment of the RFID IC strap to the antenna without any additional adhesives. Future work will focus on improving the self-healing material properties and developing interdisciplinary self-healing sensor applications utilizing RFID-based communication methods. We also discuss the future avenues for self-healing eSkin systems and bionic implants integrating human cells and self-healing polymer for regenerative tissue engineering.