Electromagnetic Performance Estimation of UHF RFID Tags in Harsh Contexts

• Main Authors: Luca Catarinucci, Riccardo Colella, Luciano Tarricone
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Croatian Communications and Information Society (CCIS) 2017-06-01
• Series: Journal of Communications Software and Systems
• Subjects: Internet of Things; Sensors; Actuators; Power Management; RFID augmented Tags; UHF; Antennas
• Online Access: https://jcomss.fesb.unist.hr/index.php/jcomss/article/view/381

Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is a consolidated example of electromagnetic system in which passive labels equipped with flexible antennas, called tags, are able to use a portion of the electromagnetic energy from the reader antennas, power-up their internal circuitry and provide the automatic identification of objects. Being fully-passive, the performance of RFID tags is strongly dependent on the context, so that the selection of the most suitable tag for the specific application becomes a key point. In this work, a cost-effective but accurate system for the over-the-air electromagnetic characterization of assembled UHF RFID tags is firstly presented and then validated through comparison with a consolidated and diffused measurement systems. Moreover, challenging use-cases demonstrating the usefulness of the proposed systems in analyzing the electromagnetic performance of label-type tags also when applied on materials on different shape or embedded into concrete blocks have been carried out.