A textile integrated sensor system for monitoring humidity and temperature

We report on the fabrication of a temperature and a humidity sensor for the integration into a smart textile as sensing device that monitors the room climate. For this purpose, we developed a sensor system on flexible polyimide substrates containing a gold resistance temperature sensor (RTDs) and conductive polymer (PEDOT-PSS) humidity sensor. The sensor is woven into a textile using a commercial band weaving machine. The measured resistance versus temperature shows a linear response with a temperature coefficient of 0.0028°C^-1. The measured resistance versus humidity for the PEDOT sensors shows a non-linear distribution over the range from 30 to 80% RH. We successfully tested the devices in a controlled environment at 20°C and 30-5 % RH. Both sensors show their potential for environmental monitoring of the room climate as integrated sensors in textiles.