Compact size flexible UHF RFID tag antenna for racing pigeon ring applications

A very small size radio frequency identification (RFID) tag antenna specifically designed for racing pigeon ring applications is proposed. The structure of this UHF tag is a closed‐loop type printed on a 30 × 8 mm² polyimide film of thickness 0.063 mm. Thus, it can be wrapped into a double layer plastic cylindrical ring of size similar to those used for racing pigeon. By simply tuning the inner width of the loop, good conjugate matching between the tag chip input impedance and the tag antenna can be achieved. When mounted onto a real preserved dried pigeon feet specimen, the measured impedance bandwidth of the tag antenna was 901‐929 MHz. Further experimental results have also shown that the proposed antenna has a maximum reading range of up to 50 cm.     

Compact meandered RFID tag antenna with high read range for UHF band applications

In this work, a compact, long read range, and an efficient spiral loop structure coupled tag antenna is proposed for UHF‐RFID applications. Meandered line element is inductively coupled to spiral loop for matching its input impedance to Higgs‐4 chip. Equivalent circuit of antenna is extracted to analyze its working mechanism in the operating band. Experimental characterization validates the performance of proposed tag antenna in free space and on cardboard sheet in terms of read range, tag sensitivity, and differential radar cross section with an EIRP of 3.28 W. The measured radiation pattern of the tag is found to be omnidirectional in H plane and figure of eight in E plane. The tag's read range is measured on objects like fiber, wood, plastic, and glass in outdoor scenario to study its environment tolerance. The tag antenna has volumetric size of 1736 mm³ and read range of 13.6 m in US RFID band.     

无源UHF超高频标签天线设计与研究

无源UHF频段RFID技术信号传输速度快,覆盖距离远,通过与互联网、通讯等技术相结合,可实现全球范围内物品的跟踪与信息共享。该技术由射频模拟前端电路、控制逻辑电路等组成的无源UHF超高频射频识别标签系统,由外接天线与读写器完成通信,天线既要与识别标签相匹配,又要与读写器较好地通信,天线决定了标签是否能正常工作,同时也决定了信号传输的距离。为此,通过研究天线的匹配阻抗、形状尺寸与大小,以及频带的设计,探索出了低成本、高可靠的天线设计方案。     

Triple band omnidirectional miniaturized metamaterial inspired antenna using flipped rectangular stub for LTE,WiMAX, and WLAN applications

In this article, a miniaturized metamaterial (MTM) inspired antenna with triple band characteristics is presented for LTE/WLAN/WiMAX applications. The antenna mainly consists of a square shaped split ring resonator (SRR) with rectangular stub connected in the outward direction. Due to inward flipping of the same rectangular stub leads to 20% antenna miniaturization without degrading the resonance behavior. The SRR produces first and second band, while the third band is enhanced due to flipping of inward stub and addition of rectangular type slot in the partial ground plane. The antenna exhibits tri‐band characteristics with each bands centered at 2.23, 3.65, and 5.13 GHz, having ?10 dB impedance bandwidth of 9.42%, 12.88% and 15.34% for the first, second, and third band, respectively. The antenna has a footprint size as low as 0.16 λ₀ × 0.18 λ₀ × 0.012 λ₀ corresponding to 2.23 GHz with a measured gain of 2.22, 2.31, and 1.98 dBi., and measured radiation efficiency of 70%, 72.75% and 82.57% in the three bands, respectively. The prototype of the antenna is fabricated and simulated results are verified through measurements.     

Novel electrically small meander line RFID tag antenna

This article introduces a new RFID tag antenna designed for operation at 915 MHz. The proposed antenna is electrically small with dimensions (λ₀/15) × (λ₀/15). It features two vivaldi‐like apertures flipped with respect to each other around an axis parallel to their slotted edges. Each aperture is loaded with a meander line with multiple loops. The two sides of the proposed antenna are fed via a common slot line that is coupled electromagnetically to a perpendicular microstrip line at the other side of a dielectric substrate. The new antenna are fabricated using printed circuit board technology and the fabricated prototype is experimentally characterized. The optimization and theoretical investigation of the proposed antenna are performed via both HFSS and CST. The two simulators agree very well with each other and with measurements. The characteristics of the new RFID antenna are generally good, such as: small size (22 mm²), low profile (0.8 mm), flexible impedance matching, reasonable impedance bandwidth (8%), omni‐directional radiation, low cross‐polarization level (?20 dB at broadside), acceptable radiation efficiency (76%), and gain (?0.3 dBi). © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 23: 639–645, 2013.     

Design of a compact triple band antenna with independent frequency tuning for MIMO applications

In this article, a planar, low profile microstrip line‐fed triple band multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna is presented for WiMax (2.5/3.5/5.5 GHz)/WLAN (2.4/3.6/5.8 GHz) applications simultaneously. The single element of the MIMO antenna consists of (i) a rectangular split ring resonator (SRR), (ii) a stepped impedance resonator (SIR) inside the SRR and (iii) a slot on the SIR. Each of the resonators generates its own individual band and each band is independently tunable. The antenna exhibits three operating bands at 2.35‐2.85 GHz, 3.25‐3.90 GHz and 5.45‐5.65 GHz. Four antenna elements are used to design the proposed MIMO antenna. The simulated results are observed and reported in terms of S‐parameters, gain, radiation patterns, envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), diversity gain (DG), channel capacity loss (CCL) and total active reflection coefficient. ECC and CCL are within the acceptable range defined for 4G and 5G application standards. To validate the simulation results a prototype structure is fabricated and the measured results are compared with those obtained from the simulation.     

Linearly tapered meander line broadband monopole tag antenna with T‐match for Ultra High Frequency Radio Frequency Identification applications

In this paper, a compact, broadband linearly tapered meandered monopole tag antenna for UHF‐RFID is designed and optimized using particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. An inductive T‐match network is utilized for impedance matching with capacitive Higgs‐4 chip. The optimization goal of PSO was conjugate matching and in consequence the maximization of read range. Equivalent circuit of the proposed tag antenna is derived using ADS software to validate its impedance characteristics. The performance of the proposed tag in terms of tag power sensitivity, read range, realized gain, and differential radar cross section has been experimentally characterized. To check the tolerance of the designed tag to various object platforms, its read range performance is also verified on objects like wood, fiber, plastic, and so forth. Furthermore, read pattern of the proposed tag has been measured and found to have figure of eight in E‐plane and omnidirectional in H‐plane. Experimental results reveal that the proposed tag covers 865‐867 MHz (ETSI band, Europe) and 902‐928 MHz (FCC band, United States) both major RFID bands with a read range of 10 and 12 m, respectively. The proposed tag has 2060 mm³ of volumetric size with maximum measured readable distance of 12 m with EIRP of 3.28 W.     

Low‐profile UHF RFID reader antenna with CP radiation and coupled feeding technique

A low profile annular‐ring patch antenna with circularly polarized (CP) radiation for radio frequency identification (RFID) reader applications in the ultra‐high frequency (UHF) band (922‐928 MHz) is presented in this article. Perturbation method is applied by loading a pair of triangular open‐notch into the outer circumference of ring patch, and good impedance matching can be determined by using the coupled feeding technique. The overall size of this proposed antenna is 150 mm × 150 mm × 10.4 mm. The measured results show desirable 10‐dB impedance bandwidth and 3‐dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of 3.5% (908‐941 MHz) and 0.65% (922‐928 MHz), respectively. Stable antenna peak gain and efficiency of 7.2 dBic and 87% are also exhibited, respectively.     

A metamaterial hepta‐band antenna for wireless applications with specific absorption rate reduction

Present article embodies the design and analysis of slotted circular shape metamaterial loaded multiband antenna for wireless applications with declination of SAR. The electrical dimension is 0.260 λ × 0.253 λ × 0.0059 λ (35 × 34 × 0.8 mm³) of proposed design, at lower frequency of 2.23 GHz. The antenna consists of circular shape rectangular slot as the radiation element loaded with metamaterial split ring resonator (SRR) and two parallel rectangular stubs, etched rectangular single complementary split‐ring resonator (CSRR) and reclined T‐shaped slot as ground plane. Antenna achieves hepta bands for wireless standards WLAN (2.4/5.0/5.8 GHz), WiMAX (3.5 GHz), radio frequency identification (RFID) services (3.0 GHz), Upper X band (11.8 GHz—for space communication) and Lower K_U band (13.1 GHz—for satellite communication systems operating band). Stable radiation patterns are observed for the operating bands with low cross polarization. The SRR is responsible for creating an additional resonating mode for wireless application as well as provide the declination in SAR about 13.3%. Experimental characteristic of antenna shows close agreement with those obtained by simulation of the proposed antenna.     

Design of wideband antenna with band notch characteristics based on single notching element

In this article, a coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed planner monopole antenna with a compact size of 0.32λ × 0.30λ × 0.0056λ mm³ is presented. The radiator is fed with 50 Ω CPW feed line that provides impedance matching from 1.7 to 30 GHz for VSWR ≤2. In addition, three narrow bands are filtered out in the ultra‐wideband (UWB) range. The narrow notched bands are filtered for WiMAX (3.52‐4.2 GHz), WLAN (5.04‐5.40 GHz), and X band (8.22‐9.10 GHz) application. The rejecting bands are achieved by loading a single tri‐square ring resonator (SRR) on the backside of the feed line. The dimensions of SRR control the notch resonance frequencies. A single‐, dual‐, and tri‐notch frequencies have been achieved by using single‐, dual‐, and tri‐SRR, respectively. The measured results of antenna structures in the absence and presence of the SRR are compared with the simulations. The measured results validate the proposed design.     

Ultra‐high‐frequency radio frequency identification tag antenna applied for human body and water surfaces

A novel ultra‐high‐frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) tag antenna has been proposed in this article, which can be mounted on the surfaces of the human body and water. The proposed antenna is realized by an elliptical structure, whose long and short axes are 72 and 30 mm, respectively. The tag antenna consists of an elliptical loop radiation element, microstrip feed lines, arc matching networks, and tuning patches. We have analyzed the antenna radiation characteristics influenced by the structural parameters of the antenna and the thicknesses of the human body and water. The simulation and measurement results show that the proposed antenna can operate steadily on the surfaces of the human body and water with good conjugate impedance matching. The maximum measured reading range of the tag antenna on the surfaces of the human body and water can reach 5 and 7 m, respectively. The novelties exhibited in the proposed antenna include an elliptical structure, the stable performance on the surfaces of the human body and water, small size, and long reading range.     

A modified split ring resonator based printed compact monopole UWB antenna with spiked elliptical radiator having five band rejection features

A coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed printed compact monopole antenna with five band rejection features is presented. Wide bandwidth was achieved by beveling the lower part and adding a modified ellipse on the upper portion of the patch. An inverted circular arc, single circular split ring resonator (SRR) with wide opening and two symmetrical circular single SRRs were embedded for obtaining three stop‐band characteristics. Two symmetrical slits were inculcated in the ground forming defected ground structure (DGS) to get another stop‐band characteristic. Two concentric rectangular modified SRRs were etched to obtain a higher frequency stop‐band feature. The proposed antenna was designed, fabricated, and experimentally tested for the validation of results. The overall dimensions of the proposed antenna were 29 mm × 24 mm × 1.6 mm. The measured impedance bandwidth of the antenna was 2.87 to 13.3 GHz at | S₁₁ |< ? 10 dB. The measured results show that the proposed antenna has five band notches centred at 3.96, 4.35, 5.7, 8.54, and 9.95 GHz to reject WiMAX band (3.65‐4.04 GHz), ARN band (4.29‐5.18 GHz), WLAN band (5.5‐6.9GHz), ITU‐8 band (7.37‐8.87), and amateur radio band (9.2‐10.3 GHz) respectively. The proposed antenna maintains omnidirectional radiation pattern in H‐Plane and dumbbell‐shape radiation pattern in E‐plane. Further, stable gain over the whole UWB except at notched frequency bands was reported.     

Equilateral triangular patch antenna for UHF RFID applications

This article proposes an equilateral triangule‐shaped patch antenna for radio frequency identification (RFID) applications in the 900 MHz (902–928 MHz) ultra high frequency (UHF) band. To achieve optimal impedance matching and 10‐dB operating bandwidth at the desired band, the L‐shaped probe‐feed technique was used as the feeding structure of the proposed antenna. Furthermore, a near semicircular notch was also loaded into the patch so that good circularly polarized (CP) radiation can be generated from the proposed patch antenna. By simply shifting the position or radius of this notch, the CP frequency can be varied with ease. Here, 10‐dB impedance bandwidth and 3‐dB axial ratio bandwidth of 25 and 3% were achieved. Furthermore, stable gain variation of approximately 6 dBi was also exhibited across the RFID UHF band. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:580–586, 2014.     

A low profile aperture coupled antenna with broadband circular polarization characteristics for UHF RFID applications

An aperture coupled microstrip‐line fed antenna (circular patch) with CP radiation is initially investigated. To achieve good CP radiation at 925 MHz UHF RFID frequency, the technique of loading an inverted C‐shaped slit into the circular patch is initially proposed. By further loading an open eccentric‐ring shaped parasitic element around the circular patch, an additional CP frequency can be excited at 910 MHz, and by combining these two CP frequencies, broad CP bandwidth that can cover the entire 902‐928 MHz UHF RFID band is achieved. Because of the parasitic element, the total dimension of proposed antenna is modified to 170 × 170 × 11.4 mm³. From the measured results, the impedance and CP bandwidths of the proposed antenna were 9.4% (859‐944 MHz) and 3.1% (902‐930 MHz). Furthermore, its corresponding peak gain and efficiency are 5.9 dBic and 84.3%, respectively. Further analyses have shown that the proposed antenna can also achieve good CP frequency agility across the desired UHF RFID operating band (902‐928 MHz).     

具有感应反馈环的超高频RFID标签天线设计

针对标签天线在RFID系统中的重要性,基于微带天线设计和电磁场散射理论,设计和分析了一种具有感应反馈环的超高频段RFID标签天线。天线的谐振频率为915 MHz,尺寸为78 mm×23 mm,天线显示近线性相位特性,在电压驻波比小于2的条件下,天线的阻抗带宽为100 MHz。可以通过调整感应反馈环的长度来调整天线的谐振频率,天线的增益为2.5 dBi左右。通过仿真和测量可知,这种天线能较好地满足RFID超高频段标签的要求。     

Metamaterial inspired CPW‐fed compact antenna for ultrawide band applications

A small size, planar and co‐planar waveguide fed metamaterial inspired antenna is proposed for ultra‐wideband (UWB) application. The main radiating element consists of three split‐ring resonators (SRR) and placed along one axis. Moreover, coplanar waveguide (CPW)‐fed line along with modified ground plane is used to improve the impedance matching. The physical size of proposed antenna is 25(W) × 22 (L) × 1.6 (H) mm³. The CPW‐fed metamaterial inspired antenna provides bandwidth of 10.4 GHz from 3.1 to 13.5 GHz based on the 3:1 (voltage standing wave ratio [VSWR] <2). Over the range of UWB frequency, peak realized gain varies from 2.5 to 4 dBi. The proposed antenna provides omnidrectional radiation patterns. Further, fidelity factor of the proposed antenna is also calculated and measured. The calculated fidelity factor is suitable for UWB applications. Finally, prototype of the antenna is developed and tested using network analyzer. The simulated and measured results are in good agreement.     

A compact dual‐band 2 × 1 metamaterial inspired mimo antenna system with high port isolation for LTE and WiMax applications

This article proposes a compact (43 × 26 × 0.8 mm³) dual‐band two‐element metamaterial‐inspired MIMO antenna system with high port isolation for LTE and WiMAX applications. In this structure, each antenna element consists of a square–ring slot radiator encircling a complementary split ring resonator. A tapered impedance transformer line feeds these radiating apertures and shows good impedance matching. A 2 × 3 array of two‐turn Complementary Spiral Resonator structure between the two antenna elements provides high dual‐band isolation between them. The fabricated prototype system shows two bands 2.34 – 2.47 GHz (suitable for LTE 2300) and 3.35 – 3.64 GHz (suitable for WiMAX). For spacing between two antennas of 10 mm only, the measured isolation between the two antenna elements in the lower band is around ?32 dB while that in the upper band is nearly 18 dB. The system shows a doughnut‐shaped radiation patterns. The peak measured antenna gains for the proposed MIMO system in the lower and higher bands are 3.9 and 4.2 dBi, respectively. The MIMO system figure of merits such as the envelope correlation coefficient, total efficiency are also calculated and shown to provide good diversity performance.     

具有匹配反馈环的微波段RFID标签天线设计

针对标签天线在RFID系统中的重要性,基于微带天线设计和电磁散射理论,设计和分析了一种具有匹配反馈环的微波段RFID标签天线。谐振频率为2.45 GHz和2.41 GHz天线的尺寸为54 mm×33 mm左右,天线显示近线性相位特性,在电压驻波比小于2的条件下天线的阻抗带宽为300 MHz。可以通过调整匹配反馈环的长度来调整天线的谐振频率,天线的增益为2.4~2.7 dBi。谐振频率为5.8 GHz的天线阻抗带宽为7%,增益为2.8~3.2 dBi,尺寸大小为20 mm×12 mm。通过仿真和测量可知,这种天线能较好地满足RFID微波段标签的要求。     

A novel differential filtering patch antenna with high selectivity

A novel differential filtering antenna with high selectivity is proposed. The antenna is mainly composed of three different‐size patches, a slot, a pair of differential feeding lines, and a line resonator. An air gap is adopted to improve the impedance bandwidth and the filtering performance. The line resonator helps to generate high common‐mode (CM) rejection. Owing to the parasitic concave and convex patches, the filtering performance and the bandwidth of the antenna are enhanced. The parasitic concave patch affects the lower band‐edge selectivity while the parasitic convex patch influences the upper band‐edge selectivity. In addition, the frequencies of two radiation nulls can be controlled independently to achieve two high sharp roll‐off rates by adjusting the lengths of the parasitic patches. Considerable impedance matching bandwidth is achieved through an aperture coupling. Finally, a prototype of the differential filtering antenna is fabricated and tested. The measured results are in good agreement with the simulated results, showing an impedance bandwidth of 9.9% and an average realized gain of 7.5 dBi. Besides, two filter zero transmissions located at 3.40 and 3.84 GHz produced two radiation nulls.