In this paper, two compact patch antenna designs for a new application - outdoor RF energy harvesting in powering a wireless soil sensor network - are presented. The first design is a low-profile folded shorted patch antenna (FSPA), with a small ground plane and wide impedance bandwidth. The second design is a novel FSPA structure with four pairs of slot embedded into its ground plane. Performance of both antennas was first simulated using CST Microwave Studio. Antenna prototypes were then fabricated and tested in the anechoic chamber and in their actual operating environment - an outdoor field. It was found that the FSPA with slotted ground plane achieved a comparable impedance bandwidth to the first design, with an overall size reduction of 29%. Simulations were also carried out to investigate the effects of different design parameters on the performance of the proposed slotted ground plane FSPA.

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Compact Patch Antenna Design for Outdoor RF Energy Harvesting in Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper proposes an innovative real-time manufacturing cost tracking system (RT-MCT) which integrates the concepts of lean manufacturing and RFID. The RT-MCT is developed for tying lean operational aspects and financial costs together in real-time. The new real-time cost tracking method is vital in identifying the root causes of redundant costs and pinpointing the most costly root causes and their locations so that their elimination becomes a top priority. Furthermore, RT-MCT mirrors the monetary impacts of implementing lean improvements at the various value stream stages in today’s mass-customization production environments that support the decision-making strategies. The system presented is validated through building a simulation model along with extensive calculations to demonstrate that the system is physically implementable using the RFID real-time data.

RFID-enabled smart real-time manufacturing cost tracking system

Radio frequency identification RFID is a promising technology which can potentially assist in enhancing the efficiency of manufacturing by reorganising and optimising internal operations, such as purchasing, warehousing, management, and distribution of materials in the production, as well as in external supply chain management. RFID makes it possible to identify individual objects in the production automatically and wirelessly, so it has an increasing potential in various applications which can make manufacturing more efficient and productive. This survey provides an insight to the application of RFID technology in the management of manufacturing and supply chain. The survey includes a summary on the main purposes of use and on the main application fields of the technology. In manufacturing, typical application targets of RFID are related to warehouse management, process management, tool management, supply chain management, and life cycle management. In addition, the main users, i.e. those manufacturing branches which have been the primary users of RFID this far, are listed in this survey to reveal the current industrial practice. Furthermore, the current challenges in implementing the technology are discussed, as well as the most potential future manufacturing applications and research directions. The sources used for this study are original peer-reviewed reviews and journal articles, conference papers, and web references.

RFID technology in manufacturing and supply chain

Traditional restaurant service is typically passive: Waiters must interact with customers directly before processing their orders. However, a high-quality service system should be customer centered; it should immediately recognize customer identities, favorite menus, and expenditure records to provide customer-centric services. To achieve this goal, this study integrates radio frequency identification (RFID), wireless local area network, database technologies, and a menu recommender to develop an intelligent e-restaurant for customer-centric service. This system enables waiters to immediately identify customers via RFID-based membership cards and then actively recommend the most appropriate menus through menu recommender for customers. Experimental results that are obtained from a case study conducted in two Taipei restaurants indicate that the proposed system has practical potential in providing customer-centric service.

Developing an Intelligent e-Restaurant With a Menu Recommender for Customer-Centric Service

due to recent technological advances, have been used for various advantages in industries like production facilities, supply chain management etc. Since used in wide range of applications, RFID systems demand low cost and low profile antennas. Microstrip patch antenna offers a potential solution and therefore is a popular printed resonant antenna for narrow-band applications. In this paper, a 2.42 GHz inset fed patch antenna has been designed for RFID applications with a gain of 4.6772dB and a return loss of-21.0579 dB.

Design of a Microstrip-Line-Fed Inset Patch Antenna for RFID Applications

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has become an important driver in the production and logistics activities of today's information-based industries and economies. With the innovative developments in information and communication technologies, companies focus more on how these changes can be implemented and promoted in order to improve their value-added processes. This paper presents one such implementation approach for the monitoring and analysis of a discrete manufacturing environment using the RFID technology. Our aim is to bridge the gap between the physical flow of materials on the shop floor and manufacturing information and execution systems by allowing a rapid development and deployment of an RFID-based manufacturing automation solution.

Design of an RFID-based Manufacturing Monitoring and Analysis System

UHF band microstrip patch antenna for RFID reader with a center frequency of 867 MHz, as specified in Gen2 protocol European standards, is designed. Patch antenna is printed on FR4 material with dielectric constant of 4.55 with dimensions of 10times12 cm, from measurements at 867 MHz S11 is observed to be -22dB with an input impedance of 42.4 Omega.

S. Drannikov

Papers

Design of an RFID-based Manufacturing Monitoring and Analysis System

Microstrip Patch Antenna for RFID Applications