Many new radio-frequency identification (RFID) applications have been introduced into the market in recent years. Naturally, all such applications would benefit from RFID tags that are smaller, lighter, and have greater read range.
Although studies have been conducted that have focused on improving the performance of planar antennas, high-frequency antennas have been successfully fabricated using three-dimensional fabrication techniques, such as additive manufacturing. These antennas have been fabricated using thermoplastics having a low loss tangent (as compared to commercially available substrates) such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and silver-based conductive paste (e.g., Dupont CB028). Such materials can be printed in a conformal manner and used to form non-planar three-dimensional printed devices.
In view of the availability of three-dimensional fabrication techniques, it would be desirable to fabricate RFID tag antennas using these techniques in order to obtain improved results in terms of one or more of cost, size, weight, and read distance.
The present disclosure may be better understood with reference to the following figures. Matching reference numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the figures, which are not necessarily drawn to scale.
As described above, it would be desirable to fabricate radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag antennas using three-dimensional fabrication techniques in order to obtain improved results in terms of one or more of cost, size, weight, and read distance. Disclosed herein are three-dimensional RFID tags that are fabricated using such techniques. In some embodiments, the tags comprise a passive RFID integrated circuit (IC) chip and a three-dimensional tag antenna that is electrically connected to the chip. In some embodiments, the tag antenna is a dipole antenna having arms that comprise conductive lines that have been deposited on multiple orthogonally arranged substrates that together form an open-toped rectangular hexahedron. In some embodiments, the impedance matching between the antenna arms and the passive RFID IC chip is accomplished with an H-slot matching technique to obtain a simulated 10 dB return loss bandwidth that enables the tag to operate in the American and European ISM RFID bands of 902-928 MHz and 864-868 MHz, respectively.
In the following disclosure, various specific embodiments are described. It is to be understood that those embodiments are example implementations of the disclosed inventions and that alternative embodiments are possible. All such embodiments are intended to fall within the scope of this disclosure.
Described in this disclosure is a three-dimensional approach used to design and manufacture RFID tags comprising a three-dimensional tag antenna that is connected to a RFID integrated circuit (IC) chip. The antennas are designed so as to provide a good impedance match at the ports of the chip and the highest gain possible to improve the read range. In addition, goals such as lower cost, lighter weight, smaller footprint, and smaller volume are achieved. As described below, additive manufacturing was used to fabricate a three-dimensional tag antenna that provides a return loss greater than 10 dB and a simulated gain of 1.63 dBi, using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and Dupont CB028 silver-based conductive paste. The same design was also fabricated using a commercially available substrate that has similar electrical properties as ABS (Rogers Duroid RT 5870) for the purpose of benchmarking. These two antennas were compared with similarly sized commercial RFID tags and showed better read ranges.
In some embodiments, the tag antenna 14 operates as a dual-band radiator by selecting the center frequency between the European and the American RFID bands. In such a case, an 894 MHz half-wavelength dipole can be implemented. A single antenna arm length of 84 mm could be used in such an application because this distance represents approximately one quarter wavelength of an 894 MHz wave in free space. However, an 84 mm arm leads to a single planar two-dimensional model with a total length of 190 mm, which might be too large for applications in which the required volume is reduced and only a smaller antenna can be implemented. Accordingly, a three-dimensional tag antenna geometry is implemented in the tag 10 to reduce its footprint.
The tag antenna 14 illustrated in
With further reference to
In the illustrated embodiment, the vertical portion 30 of the first dipole arm 26 comprises a first vertical segment 40 that extends upwardly from the second transverse segment 38 along the first end substrate 18, a first horizontal segment 42 that extends outwardly from the first vertical segment 40 along the transverse direction of the tag to the second lateral substrate 24, a second vertical segment 44 that extends upwardly from the first horizontal segment 42 along the second lateral substrate 24 to a top edge of the first end substrate 18, a third horizontal segment 46 that extends inwardly from the second vertical segment 44 along the transverse direction of the tag and along the top edge of the first end substrate 18 to the first lateral substrate 22, and a fourth horizontal segment 48 that extends inwardly from the third horizontal segment 46 along the longitudinal direction of the tag and along a top edge of the first lateral substrate 22 toward the second end substrate 20. Accordingly, the vertical portion 30 of the first dipole arm 26 forms a second meandered portion of the first dipole arm 26.
A second three-dimensional dipole arm 50, which is anti-symmetrical to the first dipole arm 26, comprises a first or horizontal portion 52 that is formed on the inner surface of the base substrate 16 (and therefore lies in the horizontal plane) and a vertical portion 54 that extends upward from the base substrate and along the inner surfaces of the first end substrate 18 and the second lateral substrate 24 (and therefore lies in two different orthogonal, vertical planes). In the illustrated embodiment, the horizontal portion 52 includes a first longitudinal segment 56 that extends outwardly from the RFID IC chip 12 at the center of the first substrate 16 along the longitudinal direction of the RFID tag 10 toward the second end substrate 20, a first transverse segment 58 that extends outwardly from the first longitudinal segment 56 along the transverse direction of the tag to the second lateral substrate 24, a second longitudinal segment 60 that extends outwardly from the first transverse segment 58 along the longitudinal direction of the tag and along the second lateral substrate 24 to the second end substrate 20, and a second transverse segment 62 that extends inwardly from the second longitudinal segment 60 along the transverse direction of the tag and along the second end substrate 20 toward the first lateral substrate 22. Accordingly, the horizontal portion 52 of the second dipole arm 50 forms a first meandered portion of the second dipole arm 50.
In the illustrated embodiment, the vertical portion 54 of the second dipole arm 50 comprises a first vertical segment 64 that extends upwardly from the second transverse segment 62 along the second end substrate 20, a first horizontal segment 66 that extends outwardly from the first vertical segment 64 along the transverse direction of the tag to the first lateral substrate 22, a second vertical segment 68 that extends upwardly from the first horizontal segment 66 along the first lateral substrate 22 to a top edge of the second end substrate 20, a third horizontal segment 70 that extends inwardly from the second vertical segment 68 along the transverse direction of the tag and along the top edge of the second end substrate 20 to the second lateral substrate 24, and a fourth horizontal segment 72 that extends inwardly from the third horizontal segment 70 along the longitudinal direction of the tag and along a top edge of the second lateral substrate 24 toward the first end substrate 18. Accordingly, the vertical portion 30 of the first dipole arm 26 forms a second meandered portion of the second dipole arm 50.
In some embodiments, each of the dipole arms 26, 32 is approximately 1 mm wide along its entire length. As is further shown in
Two dielectric materials having similar characteristics were evaluated for use in the construction of the tag substrates. These materials were ABS (εr ˜2.6 and tan δ ˜0.0052) and Rogers Duroid RT5870 (εr ˜2.33 and tan δ ˜0.0012). Simulations were performed with Ansys HFSS 15 and the simulated reflection coefficient over frequency is shown in
Two different fabrication methods were used to create three-dimensional tag antennas similar to that shown in
ABS was used, which is a thermoplastic commonly utilized in additive manufacturing. The electrical properties of this material were extracted using the measured S parameters of a resonant cavity manufactured by Damaskos Inc. These parameters were a relative dielectric permittivity (εr) of 2.6 and loss tangent of 0.0052 at 1.19 GHz. The conductive layer was fabricated using an nScrypt Tabletop three-dimensional printer. Employing microdispensing, a silver-based conductive paste (Dupont CB028) was printed on top of the ABS substrates at a speed of 25 mm/s and a pressure of 12 psi using a 125 um inner diameter ceramic tip. The substrates were then cured at 90° C. for 1 hour. The hexahedron was then assembled using a commercial two-part epoxy resin and the electrical connection in between the antenna arms and to the RFID IC chip was made by manual application of silver-based conducting paste to fill the gaps.
The second fabrication method that was used traditional photolithography, i.e., copper etching and soldering, utilizing the Rogers Duroid RT5870. The same design dimensions were used to fabricate a clear field photomask. A two-part epoxy resin was utilized to assemble the hexahedron and the copper traces were electrically connected using solder. The RFID IC chip was connected manually using the silver-based conductive paste.
A feed network comprising a balun and a matching network was also fabricated for testing purposes. Two copies of the same feed network (one for each antenna) were fabricated using the same Rogers substrate: An L-section topology of two shunt capacitors of 0.8 pF (Passive Plus Inc.) and one series inductor of 24 nH (Coilcraft), followed by a 900 MHz balun (0900BL18B200E Johanson Technology, Inc). The feed networks were attached to the tag antennas using the two-part resin epoxy and electrically connected using the silver-based conductive paste.
The performance of the fabricated RFID tags was compared with two commercially available versions similar in size: the Confidex Steelwave Micro II and that Xerafy Microx II (see Table II). These two tags are far-field RFID tags with a specified read range of 5 m and 10 m (according to datasheets), respectively. The benchmarking was performed inside an anechoic chamber using a fixture so that the distance from the reader and the tag was manually adjustable. The distance was measured using a Bosch GLM 15 compact laser measure device. The CS101 Handheld RFID reader was employed to measure the read range for each of the tags.
The balun described above was used to transform the balanced port of the RFID chip to an unbalanced (coaxial) 50Ω impedance. With this transformation, the radiation patterns of the antenna constructed of ABS and the antenna constructed of Rogers Duroid RT5870 material were measured inside an anechoic chamber.
The above results establish that low-cost, three-dimensional RFID tag antennas can provide a sizable improvement on read range when compared with similar commercial tags available in the market.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/196,287, filed Jul. 23, 2015, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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62196287 | Jul 2015 | US |