Measurements and channel modeling for short range indoor UHF applications

The recent emergence of short range applications, e.g. RFID (radio frequency identification), requires careful investigation of wave propagation and adequate description of the radio channel. In this contribution, we present indoor channel measurements at 868MHz that expose the transition between the near and far field as well as the effects of fading. Furthermore, we investigate the appliance of a simple statistic channel model, based on the Rician distribution, and show that the underlying assumptions do not hold in general.