System integration of electronic functionality in packaging application

Abstract: Sensor applications are becoming increasingly important as products are now being requested to be more and more intelligent and safe. As the costs involved in sensor technology decrease its usage will spread to new market segments including new areas with products that have never previously used such functionalities, including, wood fibre based products for packaging, hygiene or graphical use. Currently there is a significant interest in developing technology that will allow packages to become interactive and be integrated with digital services accessible on the Internet. In this thesis, the system integration of a hybrid RFID based sensor platform is presented. This proposed platform provides a trade-off between the communication performance and its compatibility with international standards and also includes flexibility in on‐package customization, including the type and number of sensors. In addition it combines the use of traditional silicon based electronics with printed electronics directly onto wood fibre based materials so as to enable the possibility of creating smart packages. Together with the system integration of the sensor platform, five printed moisture sensor concepts that are designed to work with the sensor platform are presented and characterized. Firstly, there is a moisture sensor that shows a good correlation to the moisture content of wood fibre based substrates. The second one involves a sensor that detects high relative humidity levels in the air and the third is an action activated energy cell that provides power when activated by moisture. The fourth one deals with two types of moisture sensors that utilize silver nano-particles in order to measure the relative humidity in the air. The final one is a printable touch sensitive sensor that is sensitive to the moisture contained in the hand. A concept of remote moisture sensing that utilizes ordinary low cost RFID tags has also been presented and characterized.The main focus is thus on system integration to, by combining silicon based electronics with printed electronics, find the most low cost solution with regards to flexibility, sensor functions and still meet the communication standards.