Radio-frequency identification technology, based on the reader/tag paradigm, is quickly permeating several aspects of everyday life. The electromagnetic research mainly concerns the design of tag antennas having high efficiency and small size, and suited to complex impedance matching to the embedded electronics. Starting from the available but fragmented open literature, this paper presents a homogeneous survey of relevant methodologies for the design of UHF passive tag antennas. Particular care is taken to illustrate, within a common framework, the basic concepts of the most-used design layouts. The design techniques are illustrated by means of many noncommercial examples.

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The art of UHF RFID antenna design: impedance-matching and size-reduction techniques

Resonance conditions for a substrate-superstrate printed antenna geometry which allow for large antenna gain are presented. Asymptotic formulas for gain, beamwidth, and bandwidth are given, and the bandwidth limitation of the method is discussed. The method is extended to produce narrow patterns about the horizon, and directive patterns at two different angles.

Gain enhancement methods for printed circuit antennas

This paper focuses on a tutorial overview of defected ground structure (DGS). The basic conceptions and transmission characteristics of DGS are introduced and the equivalent circuit models of varieties of DGS units are also presented. Finally, the main applications of DGS in microwave technology field are summarized and the evolution trend of DGS is given.

/pdf/an-overview-on-defected-ground-structure-3dt7yj00ew.pdf

An Overview on Defected Ground Structure

A wireless IC device includes a wireless IC chip arranged to process a radio signal, a power-supply circuit board that is connected to the wireless IC chip and that includes a power supply circuit including at least one coil pattern, and a radiation plate arranged to radiate a transmission signal supplied from the power-supply circuit board and/or receiving a reception signal to supply the reception signal to the power-supply circuit board. The radiation plate includes an opening provided in a portion thereof and a slit connected to the opening. When viewed in plan from the direction of the winding axis of the coil pattern, the opening in the radiation plate overlaps with an inner area of the coil pattern and the area of the inner area is approximately the same as that of opening.

Wireless IC device

Several electrically small resonant antennas employing the composite right/left-handed transmission line (CRLH-TL) are presented for integration with portable RF modules. The proposed antenna designs are based on the unique property of anti-parallel phase and group velocity of the CRLH-TL at its fundamental mode. In this mode, the propagation constant increases as the frequency decreases, therefore, a small guided wavelength can be obtained at a lower frequency to provide the small lambdag/2 resonant length used to realize a compact antenna design. Furthermore, the physical size and the operational frequency of the antenna depend on the unit cell size and the equivalent transmission line model parameters of the CRLH-TL, including series inductance, series capacitance, shunt inductance and shunt capacitance. Optimization of these parameters as well as miniaturization techniques of the physical size of unit cell is investigated. A four unit-cell resonant antenna is designed and tested at 1.06 GHz. The length, width and height of the proposed antenna are 1/19lambda0, 1/23lambda0 and 1/83lambda0, respectively. In addition, a compact antenna using a 2-D three by three mushroom like unit cell arrangement is developed at 1.17 GHz, showing that an increased gain of 0.6 dB and higher radiation efficiency can be achieved over the first prototype antenna. The same design is applied in the development of a circularly polarized antenna operating at 2.46 GHz. A 116deg beamwidth with axial ratio better than 3 dB is observed. The physical size of the proposed mushroom type small antenna and the circularly polarized antenna is 1/14lambda0 by 1/14lambda0 by 1/39lambda0 and 1/10lambda0 by 1/10lambda 0 by 1/36lambda0, respectively

Composite right/left-handed transmission line based compact resonant antennas for RF module integration

Novel slot-shaped defected ground structures (DGSs) on the microstrip line are presented to provide a band-rejection property with an improved Q factor. Two different geometries (U-slot and V-slot) are investigated. U-slot and V-slot DGSs have simple shapes compared to the conventional DGSs, however, they provide more steep rejection characteristics. The Q factor of the band-rejection property for the U-slot DGS increases when the distance between two slots in the U-shape decreases. Similarly, the V-slot DGS provides a higher Q characteristic when the slot angle is reduced. Two bandstop filters are designed and fabricated employing three cascaded U-slot DGSs and V-slot DGSs, respectively. Experimental result shows that the high-Q band-rejection filter with three U-slot DGSs provides Q of 38.6. A fabricated filter with three cascaded V-slot DGSs also rejects the signals at the frequencies from 3.5 to 4.3 GHz with more than 20-dB suppression

Novel U-slot and V-slot DGSs for bandstop filter with improved Q factor

Provided are an antenna using an inductively coupled feeding method, a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag thereof, and an antenna impedance matching method thereof. The antenna includes a resonator for determining a resonance frequency of the antenna and a feeder for providing an RF signal to an element connected to the antenna. An RFID tag includes an antenna which receives an RF signal from the RFID reader, an RF front-end which rectifies and detects the RF signal, and a signal processor which is connected to the RF front-end. Particularly, the antenna includes a resonator for determining a resonance frequency of an antenna and a feeder for providing the RF signal to the RF front-end, wherein mutual inductive coupling between the resonator and the feeder is performed.

Antenna using inductively coupled feeding method, RFID tag using the same and antenna impedance matching method thereof

A dielectric superstrate layer above a microstrip patch antenna has remarkable effects on its gain and resonant characteristics. This paper experimentally investigates the effect of a superstrate layer for high gain on microstrip patch antennas. We measured the gain of antennas with and without a superstrate and found that the gain of a single patch with a superstrate was enhanced by about 4 dBi over the one without a superstrate at 12 GHz. The impedance bandwidths of a single patch with and without a superstrate for VSWR < 2 were above 11%. The designed 2 ×8 array antenna using a superstrate had a high gain of over 22.5 dB and a wide impedance bandwidth of over 17%.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.4218/etrij.03.0102.0002

A High-Gain Microstrip Patch Array Antenna Using a Superstrate Layer

This letter presents the design for a low- profile planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) that can be stuck to metallic objects to create a passive radio frequency identification (RFID) tag in the UHF band. The designed PIFA, which uses a dielectric substrate for the antenna, consists of a U-slot patch for size reduction, several shorting pins, and a coplanar waveguide feeding structure to easily integrate with an RFID chip. The impedance bandwidth and maximum gain of the tag antenna are about 0.3% at 914 MHz for a voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) of less than 2 and 3.6 dBi, respectively. The maximum read range is about 4.5 m as long as the tag antenna is on a metallic object.

An RFID Tag Using a Planar Inverted-F Antenna Capable of Being Stuck to Metallic Objects

An embedded patch-type RFID tag antenna (UHF band) using ceramic material for tagging metallic objects is presented. The proposed RFID tag is embedded in the metallic object; the diameter of the proposed tag is 34 mm and the height is 5 mm. It is shown that a suitable embedded tag antenna can be made from two PIFAs with horizontal slits in the metallic object. The embedded tag antenna satisfactorily operates in the metallic object and the proposed design is verified by simulation and measurements, which show good agreement.

Won-Kyu Choi

Papers

Novel U-slot and V-slot DGSs for bandstop filter with improved Q factor

Antenna using inductively coupled feeding method, RFID tag using the same and antenna impedance matching method thereof

A High-Gain Microstrip Patch Array Antenna Using a Superstrate Layer

An RFID Tag Using a Planar Inverted-F Antenna Capable of Being Stuck to Metallic Objects

UHF RFID tag antenna using two PIFAs embedded in metallic objects