Sensor Systems for Process and condition Monitoring

To support the industry with smart production technologies a radio frequency identification transponder (RFID tag) for a structural health monitoring application of industrial rubber belts was developed. These belts are widely used for power transmission applications or for goods transportation in various industries. Integrated RFID tags can help to optimize the logistic value chain and to sense and transmit wirelessly the changes in physical parameters of the rubber belts. The scientific challenges are related to the required reliability of the wireless sensor functionality. Especially various issues such as unknown dielectrical parameters of rubber materials, bending effects and high-temperature vulcanization of rubber belts become a challenge. Besides, a coped challenge was to overcome damages of the RFID tag itself during the integration into a rubber belt by vulcanization. Another solved challenge was to design an optimized antenna which is able to work inside a rubber belt of unknown dielectric material properties. For simulation of the antenna properties a 3D model was used.