Heterogenous and Flexible E-Textile Power Electronics: Enabling Novel Battery-Free Wearable Applications and Outperforming Rigid Electronics

High-efficiency power electronics are crucial to any energy harvesting or high-power e-textile system. This paper will detail the design of passive power electronics components, going beyond state-of-the-art in both e-textiles and compared to rigid counterparts. The heterogeneous e-textiles integration, combining multiple fabrication approaches, including embroidery, screen printing, and flexible printed circuits (FPCs), is compared systematically in wireless power transfer applications, outperforming rigid circuits. Inductors, capacitors, thermistors, and resistors are successfully demonstrated with high quality-factor and in system level demonstrators with wireless power handling capabilities ranging from 1 W to over 15 W, while maintaining safety in terms of thermals. Showcased demonstrators include charging consumer devices with Airfuel-compliant systems, battery-free heaters, and anti-bacterial bandages. Comparisons with prior art show a 5-fold improvement in power handling and 2-fold improvement in efficiency, demonstrating the importance of hybrid integration of e-textile power systems.