Analysis of Current State of The Art of RFID IC Chips

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a constantly developing technology particularly in the ultra-high-frequency (UHF) band for its long operating range, power efficiency, and maintenance-free characteristics. It has been successfully developed for many applications already, that includes identification, sensing, tracking, monitoring, etc. In terms of tag, the integrated circuit (IC) or chip play an essential part in the functionality of the tag, where logical information is programmed into. Nowadays, the chips come in a variety of memory options, sensitivity, supported protocols, with an optional battery-assisted mode, additional commands, and features. There are various methods that are followed to fabricate RFID tags, i.e. inkjet-printing, painting, 3D printing, etching, etc. On the way of completion of these procedures, some of the methods involve the use of chemicals, producing waste, which is unfavorable in respect of the cost, and as well as the environment. In addition, the substrate impacts tag’s performance. If the tag is going to be attached for instance, on a metal surface the radiation properties of the tag antenna would experience changes, as the electromagnetic waves will reflect on the metal surface, which will basically degrade tag’s performance. Maintaining multiple applications on a single chip has become common to a certain extent. It requires additional power than usual, which is an issue for passive tags. In order to overcome this hurdle, energy harvesting system is required, which is going to suffice the need for a power source. In this paper, the functionalities and applications of the RFID chips have been reviewed and some suggestions have been proposed on how RFID can be commercially manufactured, in terms of fabrication methods, supplying enough power for applications, and ensuring security of the tagged object

FEASIBILITY OF RFID TECHNOLOGY IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF ABB MEDIUM VOLTAGE PRODUCTS

Tämä pro gradu tutkielma käsittelee RFID – teknologian soveltuvuutta ABB Oy Medium Voltage Productin toimitusketjussa. Tutkimus toteutettiin tapaustutkimuksena käyttäen sekä laadullisia että määrällisiä menetelmiä. Tutkimuksen taustalla vaikutti yritysten tarve kehittää ja tehostaa tuotantoketjun toimintaa. Jotta yrityksen toiminta säilyisi kannattavana tulevaisuudessa kiristyvän kilpailun vallitessa, on nykyisillä resursseilla kyettävä toimimaan entistä tehokkaammin. Tutkielman viitekehyksen perustana oli alaan liittyvä kirjallisuus sekä tieteelliset elektronisessa muodossa olevat ajankohtaiset julkaisut. Osa teoksista oli julkaistu jo monia vuosia sitten, mutta perusajatukset RFID – teknologiasta ovat pysyneet muuttumattomina. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli selvittää RFID – teknologian toteutettavuutta ABB Medium Voltage Productsin toimitusketjun eri vaihessa. Lisäksi tuotiin esille erilaisia ehdotuksia siitä, miten RFID – teknologia voitaisiin käytännössä implementoida ABB:lle. Tavoitteena oli myös selvittää ja vertailla eri investointimahdollisuuksien takaisinmaksuaikoja toimitusketjun eri osissa. RFID – teknologian osalta pääajatus oli kuvata teknologia ensin yleisesti ja sitten tarkemmin yrityksen toimitusketjujen ja eri prosessien näkökulmista. RFID – teknologian käytännön sovelluksia ja toteutuneita projekteja löydettiin myös ja niitä etsittiin siksi, jotta voitaisiin huomata miten toiminta käytännössä tehostui. Keskeisin havainto oli huomata, että RFID – teknologia ei ole välttämätä aina järkevä investointi. Vaikka teknologia vaikuttaisi ensialkuun tehokkaalta ja luotettavalta, löytyy siitä useita ongelmakohtia ja haasteita joihin on tulevaisuudessa löydettävä toimivia ja kustannustehokkaita ratkaisuja. Tulevaisuudessa olisi tärkeää tutkia miten RFID tunnisteet saataisiin inegroitua piirikortteihin sekä kuinka teknologian käyttöönotto tehostaisi ulkoisen varaston tarjoajan prosesseja.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Communication system for a tooth-mounted RF sensor used for continuous monitoring of nutrient intake

In this Thesis, the communication system of a wearable device that monitors the user’s diet is studied. Based in a novel RF metamaterial-based mouth sensor, different decisions have to be made concerning the system’s technologies, such as the power source options for the device, the wireless technology used for communications and the method to obtain data from the sensor. These issues, along with other safety rules and regulations, are reviewed, as the first stage of development of the Food-Intake Monitoring projectOutgoin

RFID Technologies in Intelligent Medical Applications

This thesis examines RFID-technologies as a part of the development of intelligent medical applications. In this context the intelligence is interpreted as a property of a system that is more automatic, safe or efficient due to solutions achieved by information technology. RFID-technologies offer a wide range of possibilities for both containing and acquiring information. With the help of RFID-systems information such as the count, location, or status of hospital equipment can be obtained and monitored without the need for line of sight. In this thesis the task of applying RFID-technologies to achieve more intelligent medical applications is approached by researching the compatibility of all the known RFID-technologies at the moment of writing. However researches presented in this thesis are generally related to systems operating within the UHF-frequency band. The thesis describes the main characteristics of the four main RFID-technology standards. As this research is concentrated on the solutions specialized in hospital environments, the compliances to such a setting are highlighted from the research papers undergone in this thesis. Functionalities that are considered to be useful in an intelligent hospital setting are presented in the literature study. Such functionalities include RFID-tags that are aware of their location and orientation, tags that carry user updatable data and even tags that update their data by themselves. After revising the RFID-technologies, a case-related research conducted for this thesis is presented. The research analyzes and estimates the saturation times of the carbon dioxide absorbers that are used in anesthesia machines. The measurements are conducted by multiple tests where environmental variables are changed to different known values and the results are recorded. The goal of the research is to find out if it is possible to predict the absorber behavior, and whether saving the information needed or the prediction can be done directly to the absorbers themselves. To predict saturation, lifetime and usability of the absorbers a formula is calculated, and the formula is evaluated based on the values measured. As a conclusion UHF-RFID-technology is evaluated to be most compatible to be used in the prototype for the case. In this thesis the RFID-technologies are evaluated to be an economical and functional solution for the monitoring of absorber state, and the case is agreed to be a convenient solution to begin the transformation to intelligent hospitals. /Kir1

Feasability of printing RFID antennas on corrugated paperboard

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a trace-and-track technology using RF signals for communication. RFID system was expected to replace barcodes and magnetic stripes because of its extra benefits for the supply chain: multiple items tracking and operation without line-of-sight. A major limitation of RFID technology was the cost of implementation. Since the existing method for RFID applications - Slap and Ship - was costly and time-and-labor consuming, this study was aimed to investigate whether the new method - printed-RFID-antenna - could be used in corrugated packaging industry for cost reduction purpose, and also whether those printed antennas could function under the severe environments. Although the results showed the success of the conductive antennas on corrugated materials, the conductivity achieved was not as high as that of the ones on label substrates. This indicated that the printed-RFID-antenna method could be used in corrugated packaging production, but an additional treatment might be needed. Moreover, the results also showed that those printed antennas on corrugated substrates had a little effect under the high temperature/high humidity environment, but had a big impact under the frozen condition