Design of modied folded dipole antenna for UHF RFID tag

Y. Choi, U. Kim, J. Kim and J. Choi

A simple tag antenna for the Korean ultra-high-frequency radio frequency identication (RFID) band (908 914 MHz) using a modied dipole structure is proposed. The overall dimension of the tag antenna is 64.1 17.8 mm. The input impedance of the designed tag antenna is 43 j800 V and is conjugately matched to a Philips EPC UCODE Gen 2 RFID tag microchip with an impedance of 43 2 j800 V at 912 MHz. Good wake-up sensitivity and radiation pattern characteristics were obtained in the desired frequency band.

Introduction: Ultra-high-frequency (UHF: 860 960 MHz) band tag antennas yield long reading range for radio frequency identication (RFID) systems. For this reason, UHF RFID systems are receiving much attention these days [1]. Since most UHF RFID tags have to be attached onto small objects, the tag antenna has size constraint. Meandering and inverted-F structures have been commonly used to reduce the size of RFID tags [2, 3]. The input reactance of the tag antenna should be highly inductive in order to be conjugately matched with the large capacitive reactance of a microchip. The most important design aspect should be the conjugate matching between the tag antenna and microchip. Ordinary dipole antennas utilising various techniques such as T-match, inductively coupled loop, and nested loop had been suggested to obtain the high inductive reactance of tags [4 6]. Unlike an ordinary dipole antenna, an input impedance of a folded dipole antenna has much higher inductive reactance component [7]. This is obviously a suitable property for designing a simple tag antenna without any additional network to provide high inductive reactance. However, it is difcult to design an RFID tag antenna with a large inductive reactance and a compact size. In this Letter, a UHF RFID tag antenna using the modied folded dipole structure is proposed. The proposed tag antenna has high input reactance with a simple and compact conguration and provides nearly independent tuning mechanisms for input resistance and input reactance.

Antenna design: Fig. 1a shows the folded dipole antenna with a spacing of d and a strip width of w. The folded dipole antenna has a common mode current owing, as shown in Fig. 1a. The parallel traces of the folded dipole antenna generate an electromagnetic coupling owing to the common mode current. This results in a folded dipole antenna with a high input reactance. Fig. 1b shows half of the modied folded dipole antenna having two rounded 908 bent corners. The modied folded dipole antenna has an inner trace width of R1 and outer trace width of w1 at each bent position, respectively. The two bent positions are separated by a distance S. The direction of current owing from A to B is opposite to that from C to D. As S gets smaller, the current from A to B is almost cancelled by that from C to D and the electromagnetic coupling between the inner and outer traces becomes weak. Owing to the weak electromagnetic coupling, the input reactance of the modied folded antenna is not affected substantially by the change of trace width. When S becomes zero, a modied folded dipole antenna becomes the proposed tag antenna shown in Fig. 1c. The proposed tag antenna has two circular shape loads with an inner radius of R1 surrounded by the outer trace having a width of w1. L1 represents the distance from the microchip to the bent position and L2 is the distance from the microchip to the tail of the circular shape load. Figs. 2a and 2b show the input resistance and reactance characteristics of the proposed tag antenna as a function of w1 for the xed radius of R1, respectively. It is observed that the input resistance of the proposed antenna is very sensitive to the change in the outer trace width while the input reactance is hardly changed. The most benecial aspect of using this type of structure is to easily full the conjugate matching of the tag impedance to that of the microchip by adjusting w1 to have the required input resistance after adjusting R1 to have the necessary input reactance. This provides the independent tuning mechanisms for input resistance and input reactance.
90 80 70 resistance, 60 50 40 30 w1 = 3.6 mm w1 = 3.8 mm w1 = 4.0 mm w1 = 4.2 mm w1 = 4.4 mm w1 = 4.6 mm w1 = 4.8 mm w1 = 5.0 mm

d 20 microchip 0.86 0.87 0.88 0.89 0.90 0.91 0.92 0.93

a
D w1 R1 microchip S second bent position R1 A w1 B 500 resistance, 700 first bent position 800 900 C 1000

600

b
z x w1 R1 L2 circular shape loads L1 microchip y w

2w

400 0.86

w1 = 3.6 mm w1 = 3.8 mm w1 = 4.0 mm w1 = 4.2 mm w1 = 4.4 mm w1 = 4.6 mm w1 = 4.8 mm w1 = 5.0 mm 0.87 0.88 0.89 0.90 0.91 0.92 0.93

frequency, Ghz

tails

Fig. 2 Input impedance characteristics of proposed tag antenna against outer trace width w1 for xed value of R1
a Input resistance of proposed tag b Input reactance of proposed tag antenna

Fig. 1 Generation of proposed tag antenna

a Geometry of folded dipole antenna and current ow b Geometry of modied folded dipole antenna and current ow c Geometry of proposed tag antenna

A Philips EPC UCODE Gen 2 RFID tag microchip with an impedance of 43 2 j800 V at 912 MHz is mounted on the proposed tag antenna terminal [8]. The proposed tag antenna is constructed on a

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 9th April 2009 Vol. 45 No. 8

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thin exible polyimide substrate (1r 3.4, tand 0.02) with thickness of 0.0254 mm. The radiator is made of copper with a thickness of 0.012 mm. The antenna was designed and analysed using the Ansoft High-Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS V1000) [9]. The optimal design parameters of the proposed antenna are L1 23 mm, L2 7.7 mm, R1 4 mm, w1 4.4 mm, d 0.5 mm and w 1 mm. Results: The maximum reading distance, wake-up sensitivity and radiation patterns were measured in an anechoic chamber. The characteristics of the proposed tag antenna were measured based on the backscattering method using an RFID testbed. The transmitter having an EIRP of 32 dBm consists of a computer, an RFID reader (Mercury4, TM-M4/W-NA-02), a reader antenna (EMW antenna, FSDC-07) and variable attenuators. When the sensitivity of the microchip is 214 dB [8], the proposed tag antenna has a wake-up sensitivity of 216 dB in the desired frequency band 908 914 MHz, as shown in Fig. 3. The reading distance was measured in a 10 m anechoic chamber and the maximum value was 2.5 m at 910 MHz. The radiation patterns are shown in Fig. 4. The radiation pattern is quite similar to that of a classic dipole antenna and has a maximum gain of 2 dBi. Unlike a conventional dipole antenna, the proposed tag antenna does not yield deep null points in the E-plane.

Conclusions: A compact UHF RFID tag antenna having large inductive input reactance is proposed. The proposed tag antenna is capable of easy conjugate matching to the input impedance of any commercial microchip by adjusting the inner and outer trace widths of circular loads. In addition, the proposed tag antenna has good wake-up sensitivity in the desired frequency band 908 914 MHz. Therefore, the proposed tag antenna can be a good candidate for the Korean UHF RFID system. Acknowledgments: This work was supported by Seoul R&BD program Korea. # The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2009 27 January 2009 doi: 10.1049/el.2009.0198 Y. Choi, U. Kim, J. Kim and J. Choi (Division of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Hanyang University, 17 Haengdang-Dong, Sungdong-Gu, Seoul 133-791, Korea) E-mail: choijh@hanyang.ac.kr References
1 Finkenzeller, K.: RFID handbook (John Wiley & Sons Inc., UK, 2003, 2nd edn.) 2 Marrocco, G.: Gain-optimized self-resonant meander line antennas for RFID applications, IEEE Antennas Wirel. Propag. Lett., 2003, 2, pp. 302 305 3 Soras, C., Karaboikis, M., Tsachtsiris, G., and Makios, V.: Analysis and design of an inverted-F antenna printed on a PCMCIA card for the 2.4 GHz ISM band, IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., 2002, 44, (1), pp. 3444 4 Balanis, C.A.: Antenna theory, analysis and design (John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, USA, 1997, 2nd edn.) 5 Son, H.W., and Tyo, C.S.: Design of RFID tag antennas using an inductively coupled feed, Electron. Lett., 2005, 41, (18), pp. 994 996 6 Marrocco, G.: Body-matched antenna for wireless biometry. European Conf. on Antennas and Propagation, Nice, France, November 2006, p. 795 7 Jordan, E., and Balmain, K.: Electromagnetic waves and radiating systems (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1968, 2nd edn.) 8 www.nxp.com 9 Ansoft High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS), Ver. 10.0, Ansoft Corporation

0 2 4 sensitivity, dB 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 860 870 880 890 900 910 920 930 940 950 960

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Fig. 3 Measured wake-up sensitivity of proposed tag antenna

5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 5 210 240 270 300 330

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E-plane H-plane 90

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Fig. 4 Measured radiation patterns of proposed tag antenna

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 9th April 2009 Vol. 45 No. 8

Downloaded 09 Apr 2010 to 193.50.178.217. Redistribution subject to IET licence or copyright; see http://ietdl.org/copyright.jsp