PIERS Proceedings, Moscow, Russia, August 1821, 2009

1180

Design of a Miniaturized Broadband Tag Antenna for UHF RFID

System
Xingyu Zhang and Anping Zhao
Advanced Systems Engineering, Nokia Research Center, Beijing 100176, China

Abstract In order to achieve the characteristics of miniature, low cost and broad bandwidth
for RFID tag antennas, a novel passive UHF planar tag antenna is proposed in this paper.
The proposed antenna is designed in the form of inductively coupled and comprised of a long
folded dipole and a modified double T-matching network. It was constructed with a thin copper
layer printed on a 0.24 mm-thick PET substrate for low cost production. The presented antenna
provides a fairly wide bandwidth, which is much larger than those of the existing antennas
with similar structures and satisfies the bandwidth requirements of the worldwide UHF RFID
systems. Besides, the main radiation pattern of the reported antenna tends to the orientation that
is perpendicular to the antenna surface which helps to identify the target objects. Furthermore,
the gain of the antenna meets the demands of UHF RFID systems. All the features above make
the proposed antenna applicable in use for UHF RFID systems.
1. INTRODUCTION

Radio frequency identification (RFID) that just began its explosive development in the last decade
is actually with a long history of more than half a century [1]. It has lately attracted more and
more attention for use in efficiently tracking and identifying objects in various supply chains from
security and control point of view. An RFID system basically consists of a transponder (a tag),
a reader antenna and a computer connected to the reader. Data is transferred between the tag
and the read/write device by means of electromagnetic waves at the allocated frequency bands of
125 kHz, 13.56 MHz, 840845 MHz, 869 MHz, 902928 MHz, 955 MHz, 2.45 GHz and 5.8 GHz [2].
Antennas are fundamental elements in RFID communication systems. Also, the design of RFID
tag antenna becomes more complicated and critical when the operating frequency rises to the
microwave band region. A tag antenna should be small size, low profile and simple structure for
low cost in production and convenient in use. Various kinds of RFID tag antennas have been
reported in the open literatures. A compact slotted PIFA-type RFID tag antenna was studied
in [3]. A tag antenna using the cavity for long reading range was presented in [4]. Two inductively
coupled RFID antennas in two different structures, namely arc-shape and dual-body configurations,
were designed in [5]. A dipole-type printed RFID antenna operating at UHF band (from 868 to
965 MHz) was reported in [6, 7]. However, these tag antennas are neither small in size and low in
profile nor broad in bandwidth for practical applications.
In this paper, a compact planar RFID tag antenna with low profile and fairly wide bandwidth is
proposed. The antenna is inductively coupled in order to easily implement the impedance conjugatematching between the tag antenna and the microchip, for the reactance of the microchip is rather
large because of the production process. The presented antenna is comprised of a folded dipole and
a modified double T-matching network. It was fabricated by printing a thin copper layer on a PET
substrate the profile of which is 0.24 mm. The designed antenna with a volume of 40 50 0.28 mm3
is smaller than those antennas mentioned above. Besides, the operational bandwidth of the designed
antenna when conjugate-matched to the microchip satisfies the bandwidth requirements of the
RFID systems in all UHF bands, which helps to the world-wide circulation of the RFID merchandise.
2. ANTENNA DESIGN AND RESULTS ANALYSIS

The configuration of the proposed RFID tag antenna is shown in Fig. 1. The antenna has a simple
and symmetrical structure by printing it on one side of a PET (dielectric constant r = 3.6 and loss
tan = 0.003) substrate with size of 40 50 mm2 and thickness of 0.24 mm. The antenna consists
of a long folded dipole that is used to reduce the size of the antenna. A double T-matching network
is used to adjust the power transmission coefficient between the tag antenna and the microchip (i.e.,
to implement the impedance conjugate-matching between the tag antenna and the microchip). The
uniform width of the meandered stripline is 2 mm and a 2 mm length slot in the center is reserved
for the feeding position (i.e., the place for attaching the microchip).

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Moscow, Russia, August 1821, 2009 1181

Figure 1: Geometry of the proposed RFID tag antenna.

Figure 2: Impedance characteristics of the proposed

antenna.

Figure 3: Equivalent model of the feeding structure of the tag antenna.

Figure 4: Impedance variations of the studied

RFID tag antenna.

Figure 5: Return loss of the presented antenna when

conjugate-matched to the microchip impedance.

Figure 2 depicts the simulated impedance characteristics of the proposed antenna. It can be
clearly seen from Fig. 2 that the impedance of the designed antenna is 11.2 + j132 at 915 MHz. The
input impedance of the microchip (ALN-9338-R) specified in this study is 6.2 j127 at 915 MHz
which indicates that this antenna design meets the requirement of the impedance conjugatematching between the tag antenna and the microchip. Besides, the feeding structure of the tag
antenna in the center can be clearly explained by the transmission line theory. Fig. 3 shows the
equivalent model of the feeding structure. The input impedance of the transmission line in ideal
situation can be described as formula (1):

2x
Z(x) = jZ0 tan
(1)

when x satisfies the condition of 0 < x < /4, tan(2x/) > 0 can be achieved. In this case,
Z(x) acts as an inductor and the reactance becomes larger with the increase of x. While x satisfies
the condition of x > /4, tan(2x/) < 0 can be observed. Z(x) then acts as a capacitor and
the reactance becomes smaller with the increase of x. Hence, the impedance of the tag antenna
can be simply adjusted by changing the distance (described by d in Fig. 1) between the feeding
and the shorting striplines. Meanwhile, the impedance of the tag antenna can also be changed
by adjusting the stripline width of the dipole and double T-matching network, and the separation

PIERS Proceedings, Moscow, Russia, August 1821, 2009

1182

between the meandered strplines of the dipole (which is fixed at 6 mm in this study). Fig. 4 portrays
the impedance characteristics of the studied RFID tag antenna with variation of the parameter d.
It can be seen from Fig. 4 that the impedance conjugate-matching is optimized while d is 17 mm.
Figure 5 denotes the computed return loss of the presented antenna when conjugate-matched to
the impedance of the microchip. One can see from Fig. 5 that the return loss of the antenna is lower
than 10 dB when the frequency ranges from 0.8 to 1 GHz, which satisfies the bandwidth need of
the worldwide RFID system in UHF bands. In particular, compared to the existing antennas with
the same structures, much bigger operational bandwidth is achieved for the proposed antenna. This
also helps to the circulation and practical applications of the RFID merchandise in the world.
The far-field radiation patterns of the designed tag antenna at 915 MHz are plotted in Fig. 6. It
can be noted that, due to the symmetrical structure, the main radiation direction of the presented
antenna tends to the orientation that is perpendicular to the antenna surface, which helps to the
identification of the target objects for the RFID tag antenna.
The calculated gain of the proposed RFID tag antenna at the operational frequency band is
exhibited in Fig. 7. One can conclude from Fig. 7 that the gain is between 0.5 and 2.11 dBi when
the operating frequency ranges from 0.8 to 1 GHz. It can also be illustrated that the gain of the
antenna doesnt decrease much although fold and coupling of the long dipole exist in the antenna
design.

(a) E-plane

(b) H-plane

Figure 6: Radiation patterns of the proposed tag antenna at 915 MHz.

Figure 7: Gain of the proposed RFID tag antenna at the operational frequency band.

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Moscow, Russia, August 1821, 2009 1183
3. CONCLUSIONS

A compact and low profile passive RFID tag antenna with broadband characteristics has been
designed in this paper. It realizes a fairly broad bandwidth (S11 < 10 dB between 0.8 GHz and
1 GHz) and achievable gain (from 0.5 to 2.11 dBi) with acceptable radiation patterns, although its
volume is only 40 50 0.28 mm3 based on a long folded dipole. The antenna can be fabricated by
simply printing a copper layer on one side of the PET substrate. The impedance of the tag antenna
can be simply adjusted by changing the width and distance of the copper stripline that helps to the
impedance conjugate matching between the tag antenna and the microchip. Moreover, this antenna
can be easily mounted and has good compatibility with other microwave circuit components.
REFERENCES

1. Landt, J., The history of RFID, IEEE Potentials, Vol. 24, No. 4, 811, Oct.Nov. 2005.
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3. Kwon, H. and B. Lee, Compact slotted planar inverted-F RFID tag mountable on metallic
objects, Electronics Letters, Vol. 41, No. 24, 13081310, 2005.
4. Kyoung, H. L., L. Jin-Seong, K. Goojo, and H. M. Byung, Design of UHF RFID metal tag
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