Communication with passive RFID sensor tags during injection molding of medical plastic parts: Evaluation of part integrated process documentation, monitoring and control

Increasingly, important issues regarding usage of modern medical plastic parts involve consistent and definite part identification, traceability and plagiarism protection. Especially requirements regarding Unique Device Identification (UDI) are becoming the focus of European and international regulatory authorities [1, 2]. For this purpose, in-mold labeling of plastic parts was performed using passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) transponders with temperature sensor capabilities. In order to be able to produce these smart objects on a large scale, the economically proven injection molding process was chosen. An injection mold containing an RFID antenna placed in the cavity wall was designed and evaluated to directly write production and identification data in situ on the tags for complete and gapless part documentation right from the beginning of the manufacturing process. Furthermore, a concept is presented and evaluated for using temperature sensor-equipped passive RFID tags for part integrated monitoring and control of the injection molding process.