Characterization of Composite RFID Antennas Based on Thermal Properties: A Survey

In this paper, a comprehensive survey on thermal and geometric design parameters of composite materials utilized in the fabrication of modern RFID systems has been discussed mainly due to its advantages such as lightweight and high strength. Designing of RF antenna setup requires careful consideration of material, geometric and fabrication parameters. Polymer materials were chosen as the substrate and subjected to extensive studies to determine and predict the capability of the miniaturized RFID antenna. The effect of the polymer matrix composite (PMC) material on the antenna parameters such as gain, bandwidth, and return loss is analyzed and realized that improvement in bandwidth and perfection in impedance matching can be further accomplished by employing fractal structure. It is also discovered that the thermal properties affect the impedance and operating frequencies, thus enabling multilayer PMC deploying fractal structured RFID antennas to be used for many applications such as logistics, aerospace, biomedical, and mining.

PASSIVE UHF RFID TAGS WITH THERMAL-TRANSFER-PRINTED ANTENNAS

Papers for the thermal transfer printing of UHF RFID antennas were prepared by coating and calendering. Real and imaginary components of the impedance of the UHF RFID antennas depended on their design, coating composition and conditions of paper calendering. Passive UHF RFID tags were constructed from antennas and chips whose real and imaginary components of impedance in the 860–960 MHz frequency band were at approximately the same level. The communication quality of passive UHF RFID tags was evaluated by measuring the reading range using the designed UHF RFID reading unit. The reading range of experimental UHF RFID tags with printed antennas on paper and commercial UHF RFID tags with chemically etched antennas on a PET film were identical in the 860 MHz frequency.

RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION IN CYBER-PHYSICAL SYSTEMS

Automated systems that are part of cyber-physical systems provide distribution of goods or prefabricated components, as well as their documenting and automatic tracking in real-time. Workpieces are marked with RFID transponders. RFID antennas allow contactless reading and/or recording of information, RFID electronics process and transmit it to the programmable logic controller via PROFIBUS DP, PROFINET, Ethernet IP, Ethernet TCP/IP, or EtherCAT interface. The peculiarities of the universal interface for the needs of cyber-physical systems equipped with RFID means and the main metrological characteristics of the latter are studied in the work.