Wearable flexible lightweight modular RFID tag with integrated energy harvester

A novel wearable radio frequency identification (RFID) tag with sensing, processing, and decision-taking capability is presented for operation in the 2.45-GHz RFID superhigh frequency (SHF) band. The tag is powered by an integrated light harvester, with a flexible battery serving as an energy buffer. The proposed active tag features excellent wearability, very high read range, enhanced functionality, flexible interfacing with diverse low-power sensors, and extended system autonomy through an innovative holistic microwave system design paradigm that takes antenna design into consideration from the very early stages. Specifically, a dedicated textile shorted circular patch antenna with monopolar radiation pattern is designed and optimized for highly efficient and stable operation within the frequency band of operation. In this process, the textile antenna's functionality is augmented by reusing its surface as an integration platform for light-energy-harvesting, sensing, processing, and transceiver hardware, without sacrificing antenna performance or the wearer's comfort. The RFID tag is validated by measuring its stand-alone and on-body characteristics in free-space conditions. Moreover, measurements in a real-world scenario demonstrate an indoor read range up to 23 m in nonline-of-sight indoor propagation conditions, enabling interrogation by a reader situated in another room. In addition, the RFID platform only consumes 168.3 mu W, when sensing and processing are performed every 60 s

Frequency Coded Chipless RFID Tag using Spurline Resonators

A novel compact chipless RFID tag using spurline resonators is discussed in this paper. The detection of the tag's ID is using the spectral signature of a spurline resonator circuit. The tag has a data capacity of 8-bits in the range 2.38 to 4.04 GHz. The tag consists of a spurline multiresonating circuit and two cross polarised antennas. The prototype of the tag is fabricated on a substrate C-MET/LK4.3 of dielectric constant 4.3 and loss tangent 0.0018. The measured results show that group delay response can also be used to decode the tag’s identity

A Broadband UHF Tag Antenna For Near-Field and Far-Field RFID Communications

The paper deals with the design of passive broadband tag antenna for Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) band. The antenna is intended for both near and far fields Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) applications. The meander dipole tag antenna geometry modification is designed for frequency bandwidth increasing. The measured bandwidth of the proposed broadband Tag antenna is more than 140 MHz (820–960 MHz), which can cover the entire UHF RFID band. A comparison between chip impedance of datasheet and the measured chip impedance has been used in our simulations. The proposed progressive meandered antenna structure, with an overall size of 77 mm × 14 mm × 0.787 mm, produces strong and uniform magnetic field distribution in the near-field zone. The antenna impedance is matched to common UHF chips in market simply by tuning its capacitive and inductive values since a perfect matching is required in the antenna design in order to enhance the near and the far field communications. Measurements confirm that the designed antenna exhibits good performance of Tag identification for both near-field and far-field UHF RFID applications

Antenna Design for Semi-Passive UHF RFID Transponder with Energy Harvester

A novel microstrip antenna which is dedicated to UHF semi-passive RFID transponders with an energy harvester is presented in this paper. The antenna structure designed and simulated by using Mentor Graphics HyperLynx 3D EM software is described in details. The modeling and simulation results along with comparison with experimental data are analyzed and concluded. The main goal of the project is the need to eliminate a traditional battery form the transponder structure. The energy harvesting block, which is used instead, converts ambient energy (electromagnetic energy of typical radio communication system) into electrical power for internal circuitry. The additional function (gathering extra energy) of the transponder antenna causes the necessity to create new designs in this scope

Structural behaviour of beam with HDPE plastic balls subjected to flexure load

This paper presents the structural behavior of reinforced concrete beam embedded with high density polyethylene balls (HDPE) subjected to flexural load. The HDPE balls with 180 mm diameter were embedded to create the spherical voids in the beam which lead to reduction in its self-weight. Two beam specimens with HDPE balls (RC-HDPE) and one solid beam (RC-S) with dimension 250 mm x 300 mm x 1100 mm were cast and tested until failure. The results are analysed in the context of its ultimate load, load-deflection profile, and crack pattern and failure mode. It was found that the ultimate load of RC-HDPE was reduced by 32% compared to RC-S beam while the maximum deflection at its mid span was increased by 4%. However, RC-HDPE is noticed to be more ductile compared to RC-S beam. Both types of beams experienced flexure cracks and diagonal tension cracks before failur

An Inkjet Printed Chipless RFID Sensor for Wireless Humidity Monitoring

A novel chipless RFID humidity sensor based on a finite Artificial Impedance Surface (AIS) is presented. The unit cell of the AIS is composed of three concentric loops thus obtaining three deep and high Q nulls in the electromagnetic response of the tag. The wireless sensor is fabricated using low-cost inkjet printing technology on a thin sheet of commercial coated paper. The patterned surface is placed on a metal backed cardboard layer. The relative humidity information is encoded in the frequency shift of the resonance peaks. Varying the relative humidity level from 50% to 90%, the frequency shift has proven to be up to 270MHz. The position of the resonance peaks has been correlated to the relative humidity level of the environment on the basis of a high number of measurements performed in a climatic chamber, specifically designed for RF measurements of the sensor. A very low error probability of the proposed sensor is demonstrated when the device is used with a 10% RH humidity level discrimination