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8, AUGUST 2011
AbstractThis paper presents a novel inkjet-printed humid- to markets [9][11]. In addition, it allows the use of polyimide
ity sensor tag for passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) film, which is the key component of the sensor, directly as the
systems operating at ultrahigh frequencies (UHFs). During re- printing substrate.
cent years, various humidity sensors have been developed by
researchers around the world for HF and UHF RFID systems. This paper presents an improved novel inkjet-printed hu-
However, to our best knowledge, the humidity sensor presented midity sensor for passive UHF RFID systems. To our best
in this paper is one of the first passive UHF RFID humidity sensor knowledge, the developed sensor is one of the first passive UHF
tags fabricated using inkjet technology. This paper describes the RFID humidity sensor tags fabricated using inkjet technology.
structure and operation principle of the sensor tag as well as The first humidity sensor tag design, along with numerical
discusses the method of performing humidity measurements in
practice. Furthermore, measurement results are presented, which results, was presented in [12]. The humidity sensor tag, which
include air humidity-sensitivity characterization and tag identifi- is presented in this paper, has two major improvements as
cation performance measurements. compared with the first version. First, the tag solely works in
Index TermsInkjet, radio-frequency identification (RFIF), a passive operation mode, which has allowed further improve-
relative humidity (RH), sensor. ments for longer read range. Second, the sensor tag is based on
a different and more sensitive RFID integrated circuit (IC).
I. I NTRODUCTION The inkjet-printed humidity sensor tag finds applications not
only as an air humidity sensor, i.e., hygrometer, but as a wire-
TABLE I
K EY D IMENSIONS OF THE S ENSOR TAG
Fig. 4. Cross-sectional image of the sensor tag showing the capacitors, which
are formed within the structure (not to scale and not including the entire
sensor tag).
TABLE II
K EY D IMENSIONS OF THE M EASUREMENT S ETUP
Fig. 11. Calibration data used in the measurements made for this paper.
TABLE III Fig. 12. Measured power-on-tag at 11% RH ambient air humidity.
S ALT S OLUTIONS AND T HEIR E QUILIBRIUM
R ELATIVE H UMIDITY L EVELS AT 24 C
B. Identification Performance
The theoretical read range dtag , which determines the maxi-
mal distance at which one is able to conduct humidity measure-
ments using the sensor tag in free space, is given by [28]
PEIRP
dtag = (9)
4 Lfwd PTS
where PEIRP stands for the maximum equivalent isotropically
radiated power (EIRP) allowed by local European regulations
(3.28 W) [29]. The parameter Lfwd is the measured path loss
in the forward link. The term PTS stands for the corresponding
threshold power level measured as a function of transmit fre-
quency. The results for the averaged theoretical read ranges of
the sensor tag in different humidity levels at 24 C are shown
in Fig. 17.
Fig. 14. Measured power-on-tag at 75% RH ambient air humidity.
The sensor tag, printed with two ink layers, can be operated
from a maximum distance of 8.7 m in free space. In practice,
the read range of the sensor tag will be lower as any obstacles,
such as walls, will cause attenuation. However, the read range
could be increased by printing additional ink layers to increase
the conductor thickness [30].
The measured radiation pattern of the sensor tag, as shown in
Fig. 18, shows the normalized patterns in the and planes.
The measurement was performed at 885 MHz, at 33% RH,
and at 24 C. The -plane of the tag is measured by rotating
the dipole tag along its electric field vector. The -plane is
measured by rotating the dipole tag along its magnetic field
vector. Measurements showed a slight difference in the front
and back lobes in the and planes. However, this difference
was not visible in our numerical radiation patterns, and it is
probably caused by fabrication tolerances, e.g., aligning of the
top and bottom layers.
Fig. 15. Measured power-on-tag at 97% RH ambient air humidity.
VI. C ONCLUSION AND F UTURE W ORK
respectively. The measured humidity sensitivity S is the ab- This paper has presented an improved version of the novel
solute value of the slope of fmin Pon , i.e., humidity sensor tag for UHF RFID systems, which was
originally presented in [12]. Extensive measurements that
were performed acquire the humidity sensitivity of the sen-
|f | (198.8 14.9)kHz
S= = . (8) sor. The humidity sensitivity of the sensor was found to be
|H| %RH 198.8 14 kHz/%RH. The measured standard deviation in
the humidity sensitivity allows humidity measurements within
A sensitivity S of 171.4 kHz/%RH is obtained by applying 4.0% RH accuracy. Even greater accuracy could be obtained
the same postprocessing method to the simulated power-on-tag by using a smaller frequency step in the measurements. How-
data, as shown in Fig. 6. The difference between the measured ever, this will increase the overall time required by the mea-
and simulated humidity sensitivity is most likely caused by surement. The identification performance of the sensor tag has
the water absorption differences: In the simulation model, the been found to be comparable to a traditional RFID tag; the read
humidity is being uniformly absorbed; in reality, the humidity range of the sensor, i.e., the operating range, was approximately
absorption is affected by the conductors, causing an uneven 8 m at various humidity levels.
water distribution within the Kapton film. Fig. 16 presents the In the future, a special narrow bandwidth reference tag will
measured frequency points of the lowest power-on-tag and the be designed to allow humidity level measurements using the
WLS solution of the measured sensitivity. measurement method described in this paper. These humidity
The measured humidity sensitivity in (8) allows humidity level measurements will be performed in practical applications
measurements within 4.0% RH accuracy. This uncertainty and in fading environments. The resulting measurement data
could be minimized by performing additional power-on-tag will be used to assess the accuracy, reliability, and usability of
measurements during the humidity-sensitivity characterization, the humidity measurement method. The additional operation
thus lowering the standard deviation in the linear regression. characteristics of the sensor tag, for example, its hysteresis
2776 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 60, NO. 8, AUGUST 2011
TABLE IV
M EAN F REQUENCY P OINTS OF THE L OWEST P OWER - ON -TAG AND T HEIR S TANDARD D EVIATIONS
[11] L. Hakola, Benefits of Inkjet Printing for Printed Electronics, 2005. Leena Ukkonen (M03) received the M.Sc. and
VTT, Pira Printed Electronics, viewed on Nov. 11, 2010. [Online]. Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
Available: http://www3.vtt.fi/liitetiedostot/cluster5_metsa_kemia_ Tampere University of Technology (TUT), Tampere,
ymparisto/PIRA%20Printed%20Electronics%202005%20Hakola.pdf Finland, in 2003 and 2006, respectively.
[12] J. Virtanen, L. Ukkonen, T. Bjorninen, and L. Sydanheimo, Printed She is currently leading the RFID Research
humidity sensor for UHF RFID systems, in Proc. IEEE SAS, Limerick, Group, Department of Electronics, Rauma Research
Ireland, Feb. 2325, 2010, pp. 269272. Unit, TUT. She is the holder of the Adjunct Profes-
[13] D. M. Dobkin, The RF in RFID: Passive UHF RFID in Practice. sorship at Aalto University School of Science and
Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier, 2008. Technology, Espoo, Finland. She has authored over
[14] J. P. Curty, N. Joehl, C. Dehollain, and M. J. Declercq, Remotely 100 scientific publications in the fields of radio-
powered addressable UHF RFID integrated system, IEEE J. Solid-State frequency identification (RFID) antenna design and
Circuits, vol. 40, no. 11, pp. 21932202, Nov. 2005. industrial RFID applications. Her research interests are focused on RFID
[15] Kapton HN Polyimide Film, Datasheet, Sep. 9, 2010. [Online]. Available: antenna development for tags, readers, and RFID sensors.
http://www2.dupont.com/Kapton/en_US/index.html
[16] Harima NPS-J NanoPaste: Metal Paste for Fine Pattern Formation,
Datasheet, Sep. 9, 2010. [Online]. Available: http://www.harima.co.jp/en/ Toni Bjrninen (M08) received the M.Sc. degree in
products/pdf/16-17e.pdf electrical engineering in 2009 from Tampere Univer-
[17] Alien Technology, Alien Higgs 3 Product Overview, Sep. 9, 2010. sity of Technology (TUT), Tampere, Finland, where
[Online]. Available: http://www.alientechnology.com/docs/products/ he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in
DS_H3.pdf electrical engineering.
He is currently a Researcher with the Depart-
[18] G. Marrocco, The art of UHF RFID antenna design: Impedance-
ment of Electronics, Rauma Research Unit, TUT. He
matching and size-reduction techniques, IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag.,
has authored publications on passive radio-frequency
vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 6679, Feb. 2008.
identification (RFID) tag antennas and printable
[19] Ansoft High Frequency Structure Simulator, HFSS 12, Overview, Sep. 9, electronics for microwave applications. His research
2010. [Online]. Available: http://www.ansoft.com/products/hf/hfss/ interests include antenna technologies for RFID sys-
[20] A. R. K. Ralston, C. F. Klein, P. E. Thomas, and D. D. Denton, A model tems and modeling of electromagnetics.
for the relative environmental stability of a series of polyimide capacitance
humidity sensors, in Proc. 8th Int. Conf. Solid-State Sens. Actuators, and
Eurosensors IX, Transducers, 1995, vol. 2, pp. 821824. Atef Z. Elsherbeni (F07) is a Professor of electrical
[21] Agilent 85070E Dielectric Probe Kit Technical Overview, Sep. 9, 2010. engineering, the Associate Dean of Engineering for
[Online]. Available: http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5989- Research and Graduate Programs, the Director of
0222EN.pdf the Computer-Aided Design Laboratory, School of
[22] K. Kurokawa, Power waves and the scattering matrix, IEEE Trans. Engineering, and the Associate Director of the Cen-
Microw. Theory Tech., vol. MTT-13, no. 2, pp. 194202, Mar. 1965. ter for Applied Electromagnetic Systems Research,
[23] P. V. Nikitin, K. V. S. Rao, S. F. Lam, V. Pillai, R. Martinez, and University of Mississippi. In 2004, he was appointed
H. Heinrich, Power reflection coefficient analysis for complex im- as an Adjunct Professor with the Department of
pedances in RFID tag design, IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 53, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, L.C.
no. 9, pp. 27212725, Sep. 2005. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Sci-
[24] T. Bjrninen, M. Lauri, L. Ukkonen, L. Sydnheimo, A. Elsherbeni, and ence, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. He has
R. Ritala, Wireless measurement of UHF RFID chip impedance, in conducted research dealing with scattering and diffraction by dielectric and
Proc. 32nd AMTA Symp., Atlanta, GA, 2010, pp. 3540. metal objects finite-difference time-domain analysis of passive and active
[25] J. Sidn, Z. Xuezhi, T. Unander, A. Koptyug, and H. E. Nilsson, Remote microwave devices, including planar transmission lines, field visualization,
moisture sensing utilizing ordinary RFID tags, in Proc. IEEE Sensors, and software development for electromagnetic (EM) education, interactions
Oct. 2007, pp. 308311. of EM waves with human body, radio-frequency identification and sensors
[26] Tagformance, Product Brochure, Sep. 9, 2010. [Online]. Available: development for monitoring soil moisture, airports noise levels, air quality
http://www.voyantic.com/ including haze and humidity, reflector and printed antennas and antenna arrays
[27] L. Greenspan, Humidity fixed points of binary saturated aqueous for radars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and personal communication systems,
solutions, J. Res. Nat. Bureau Std.A. Phys. Chem., vol. 81A, no. 1, antennas for wideband applications, antenna and material properties measure-
pp. 8995, Jan./Feb. 1977. ments, and hardware and software acceleration of computational techniques
[28] P. V. Nikitin and K. V. S. Rao, Antennas and propagation in UHF for electromagentics. He is the coauthor of the books The Finite Differ-
RFID systems, in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. RFID, Las Vegas, NV, 2008, ence Time Domain Method for Electromagnetics With MATLAB Simulations
pp. 277288. (SciTech, 2009), Antenna Design and Visualization Using Matlab (SciTech,
[29] EPC Global, Frequency Regulations, Sep. 9, 2010. [Online]. Available: 2006), MATLAB Simulations for Radar Systems Design (CRC Press, 2003),
http://www.epcglobalinc.org/tech/freq_reg/RFID_at_UHF_Regulations_ Electromagnetic Scattering Using the Iterative Multiregion Technique
20100824.pdf (Morgan and Claypool, 2007), and Electromagnetics and Antenna Optimiza-
[30] J. Virtanen, T. Bjrninen, L. Ukkonen, K. Kaija, T. Joutsenoja, tion using Taguchis Method (Morgan and Claypool, 2007) and the main
L. Sydnheimo, and A. Z. Elsherbeni, The effect of conductor thickness author of the chapters Handheld Antennas and The Finite Difference Time
Domain Technique for Microstrip Antennas in the Handbook of Antennas in
in passive inkjet printed RFID tags, in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Antennas
Wireless Communications (CRC Press, 2001).
Propag. & CNC/USNC/URSI Radio Sci. Meeting, Toronto, ON, Canada,
Dr. Elsherbeni is a Fellow Member of The Applied Computational Electro-
Jul. 1117, 2010, pp. 14.
magnetic Society (ACES). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the ACES Journal and
an Associate Editor of the Radio Science Journal. In 2009, he was selected as
Finland Distinguished Professor by the Academy of Finland, Helsinki, Finland,
and Tekes.
Juha Virtanen (S09) received the M.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering in 2009 from Tampere Univer- Lauri Sydnheimo (M97) received the M.Sc.
sity of Technology (TUT), Tampere, Finland, where and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in Tampere University of Technology (TUT), Tampere,
electrical engineering. Finland.
He is currently working as a Researcher with the He is currently a Professor and the Head of the
Department of Electronics, Rauma Research Unit, Department of Electronics, TUT, and works as the
TUT. He has authored publications on ultrahigh- Research Director of TUTs Rauma Research Unit.
frequency radio-frequency identification (UHF He has authored over 150 publications in the field of
RFID) sensor tags and printable electronics for RFID tag and reader antenna design and RFID sys-
microwave applications. His research interests tem performance improvement. His research inter-
include sensor integration into UHF RFID systems and the development of ests are focused on wireless data communication and
passive inkjet-printed UHF RFID tags. radio-frequency identification (RFID), particularly RFID antennas and sensors.