Effect of textile pretreatment processes on the signal transferring capability of textile transmission lines

Transmission lines in the textile structure are a path of supplying power or transmitting digital/analog signals to electronic components in a textronic system. The current experimental investigation concerned potential differences in the signal transferring capability of textile transmission lines that were subjected to different pretreatment processes. In this study, 11 conductive yarns (stainless steel, silver plated PA and insulated copper) with different linear resistance values were used to create transmission lines through different weave patterns. E-fabric structures containing transmission lines were subjected to combined desizing, alkaline scouring and hydrogen peroxide bleaching pretreatment processes. Signal-to-noise measurements were performed before and after each pretreatment process. In order to make any reasonable comparison of the signal transferring capability of efabric samples, recorded signals were analysed using Matlab ® and their SNR values were also compared statistically. The results show that the pretreatment processes, the linear resistance of conductive yarns and the type of weave structure significantly influence the signal transferring capability of the transmission lines.