A novel “Universal” inkjet-printed EBG-backed flexible RFID for rugged on-body and metal mounted applications

A novel inkjet-printed electromagnetic bandgapbacked (EBG) RFID tag has been designed and tested for wearable and metal mount applications. An array of split-ring resonators and a dipole antenna matched to an RFID chip at 915 MHz were designed and inkjet printed on paper substrate. Measurements of the tag in free space show that the required reader's minimum transmit power for successful tag reading decreases by 6 dB compared to the case without EBG, while for on-body and on-metal measurements, the read range increases by nearly a factor of 2. It has to be noted that the proposed RFID tag is flexible since it can be easily fabricated by inkjet printing nano- silver particles on paper or platic substrates. It can find numerous applications ranging from wearable antennas and bio-monitoring to transportation and logiitics for mass shipping.

[1]  Yu Zhang,et al.  Design of a low profile end-fire antenna using split-ring resonators , 2008, 2008 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium.

[2]  George Shaker,et al.  Integrated antenna with inkjet-printed compact artificial magnetic surface for UHF applications , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Wireless Information Technology and Systems.

[3]  Shaoqiu Xiao,et al.  Novel folded single split ring resonator and its application to eliminate scan blindness in infinite phased array , 2010, 2010 International Symposium on Signals, Systems and Electronics.

[4]  D. Sievenpiper,et al.  High-impedance electromagnetic surfaces with a forbidden frequency band , 1999 .

[5]  Bo Gao,et al.  Low Cost Passive UHF RFID Packaging with Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) Substrate for Metal Objects , 2007, 2007 Proceedings 57th Electronic Components and Technology Conference.

[6]  L. Ukkonen,et al.  Patch antenna with EBG ground plane and two-layer substrate for passive RFID of metallic objects , 2004, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Symposium, 2004..

[7]  R. Pethig,et al.  Dielectric properties of body tissues. , 1987, Clinical physics and physiological measurement : an official journal of the Hospital Physicists' Association, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Medizinische Physik and the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics.

[8]  Sung-Lin Chen,et al.  A Slim RFID Tag Antenna Design for Metallic Object Applications , 2008, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.

[9]  Luca Catarinucci,et al.  Design and applications of a Software-Defined listener for UHF RFID systems , 2011, 2011 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium.