Design for the Miniaturized RFID Tag Antenna in

910 MHz Band

Kyeong-Sik Min, Gun-Do Park, and Chul-Keun Park
Department of Radio Sciences and Engineering,
College of Sciences and Engineering, Korea Maritime University
#1 Dongsam-Dong, Yeongdo-Ku, Busan, 606-791, Korea
E-mail: ksmin@hhu.ac.kr, Tel: +82-51-410-4425
Abstract-In this paper, the miniaturized tag antenna which is
composed of the folded dipole for UHF band is proposed. The
reactance component of tag antenna considered chip
impedance is conjugated and matched for maximum power
transmission. The antenna is fabricated by using FR-4
dielectric substrate with permittivity 4.6. The size of antenna is
50 40 1.6 mm. The radiation pattern is good agreement
with half wavelength dipole antenna. The dimension of antenna
is externally reduced 61.7 % than proposed antenna at
references [4], [5]. The evaluation of tag antenna is processed
by connection of 50 Ohm port. The results of RCS
measurement present also that the power of tag antenna with
chip is operated at 910 MHz compare with tag antenna without
chip.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Wireless communication is widely applied for the various

kinds of information, such as text, pictures, voice, video,
and etc. There are a lot of systems using wireless
communication technology. One of them is radio frequency
identification (RFID). RFID is embossed core technology to
make information society of matter heart [1]. Fig. 1 shows a
simple RFID system model. RFID system is composed of
tag, reader and middleware. When passive tag is used, the
reader transmits radio wave to the tag, activates from the tag,
and receives ID information [2].
In RFID system, the basic components of tag are an
antenna, chip and impedance matching network [3]. The
impedance matching between tag antenna and chip is very
important thing. In order to realize the maximum power
transmission reflected from tag, the reactance part of tag
antenna has to be conjugate reactance of chip. Generally, the
resistance value of chip is employed under 100 Ohm and its
reactance is applied -300 ~ -100 Ohm. Inductive reactance
components are considered in tag antenna design.

Moreover, the size of RFID tag antenna depends on the

product application. When the tag antenna is attached on big
size product, the size of antenna is not important. However,
the tag size is important that it is attached on very small size
as a compact mobile terminal or it is used for internal type
of small product. The size of proposed antennas for RFID
tag are 95 55 1.6 mm in Ref. [4] and 105 60 4 mm
in Ref. [5]. The proposed antenna in Ref. [4] is flexible for
variation of tag impedance. However it can not apply to
smaller size of product than antenna. Another one in Ref. [5]
shows a good characteristics and performance. But it has
disadvantage for compact and internal type product because
it has three dimensional structures as 105 60 4 mm.
Therefore in this paper, the miniaturization design of tag
antenna by iterative optimization is proposed for applying to
any size of product. In the section II, the characteristics of
tag antenna present detail. Section III and IV describe
experimental results and conclusion, respectively.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
Fig. 2 shows the proposed tag antenna structure. This
structure is designed to folded dipole with meander
techniques. The size is reduced by using miniature method.
In design, it is considered the given chip impedance value,
and the optimum parameters of tag antenna with conjugated
value of chip reactance are obtained by iterative calculation
of the HFSS tool as shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 2. The structure of proposed tag antenna.

Figure 1. General configuration of RFID system.

This tag antenna is matched to 25 + j100 for maximum

power transmission and satisfied the Korean RFID standard
frequency band (908. 5 ~ 914 MHz). The permittivity of
dielectric is considered 4.6 for tag antenna design. Total size

is 50 40 1.6 mm, width of microstrip line is 2 mm, and

matching parameter is expressed to L of patch length,
respectively. The impedance of tag antenna depends on the
L.
Fig. 3 shows the variation of impedance according to L
change. The tag antenna is matched to 25 + j100 Ohm at
910 MHz when L is 10 mm because the chip impedance for
tag antenna is 25 j100 Ohm. The solid line is resistance
and the dotted line is reactance.
Fig. 4 shows radiation pattern of the antenna. It presents
the general dipole antenna pattern. The solid and dotted line
are E(XY plane) pattern and H(YZ plane) pattern,
respectively. The proposed antenna is connected to 50 Ohm
port for evaluation. Because the tag antenna with 25 - j100
Ohm can not measure by using conventional equipment.
Thus the return loss, impedance, and radiation pattern of
antenna have to measure by using 50 Ohm port instead of
tag chip. If the results of simulation and measurement of
proposed antenna with 50 Ohm have a good similarity, we
can estimate that the tag antenna with chip 25 - j100 has also
a good performance at 910 MHz.

(a) The fabricated antenna (25+j100) with 50 Ohm port

(b) The fabricated tag antenna with chip(25-j100)

Figure 5. Comparison between fabricated tag antenna with 50 Ohm port
and with chip.

Figure 3. Impedance variation of proposed antenna at 910 MHz.

Figure 6. Return loss variation by different impedance.

Figure 4. Radiation pattern of proposed antenna (910 MHz).

Fig. 5 (a) and (b) show photograph of the fabricated tag

antenna with 50 Ohm port and with chip 25 j100 Ohm.

In the Fig. 5 (a), the antenna is used for evaluation of tag

antenna because the tag is only recognized by using the
UHF RFID reader. The size of antenna is 50 40 mm and
FR-4 dielectric substrate with permittivity 4.6 is used for
fabrication.
Fig. 6 shows the return loss of tag antenna with 50 Ohm
port. The simulation and measurement results are good
agreement. The resonance frequency is 940 MHz. This tag
antenna is already matched 25 + j100 Ohm for maximum
power transmission. Only the 50 Ohm port is connected for
measurement. Therefore the resonance frequency is
different. However return loss is not good performance
because tag antenna is connected to 50 Ohm instead of chip
25 - j100 Ohm for measurement.

are simulation and measurement results, respectively.

Therefore we can evaluate that the radiation pattern and
impedance of tag antenna with chip have also a good
performance compare with simulation results.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Figure 7. The impedance by 50 Ohm port.

(a) E pattern (XY plane)

The performance of RFID tag antenna is estimated to

recognition distance of tag. In the RFID system
measurement, generally a radar cross section (RCS) method
is used for identification and distance measurement of tag.
The RCS method is also applied to measurement of
proposed tag antenna in this research. As mentioned above,
the measurement results by RCS method present compare
each other.
Fig. 9 shows the RCS measurement system for the tag
antenna in anechoic chamber. The measurement system
consists of transmitting (TX) and receiving (RX) antenna,
signal generator, and spectrum analyzer. The TX and RX
antenna is biconical antenna which operate at 300 MHz ~ 2
GHz. The distance of TX(RX) antennas and tag is 1 meter.
The as shown in Fig. 9 is angle of TX and RX antennas. If
the tag antenna is operated at 910 MHz, the receiving signal
higher than only mismatched tag antenna. An absorber is
used for isolation between TX and RX antenna. The
transmitted signal at TX antenna propagated to free space
and is reflected by tag and received at RX antenna.
Fig. 10 shows the results of RCS measurement in the
anechoic chamber. The signal level of tag antenna without
chip is -56.8 dBm2 when the is 20 degree. However the tag
antenna with chip is -55.5 dBm2. Therefore the tag antenna
is matched and operated at 910 MHz. From these results, the
RCS by using tag antenna with chip were measured. When
the is increase, the signal level is decrease.

(b) H pattern( YZ plane)

Figure 8. The radiation pattern by 50 Ohm port (910 MHz).

Fig. 7 shows the simulation and measurement impedance

of antenna with 50 Ohm port. The simulation results show
the change that resistance is form 20 to 360 Ohm and
reactance is from -j200 to +j95 Ohm. It also presents a good
agreement.
Fig. 8 shows radiation pattern of tag antenna with 50
Ohm port. The measurement results have a good agreement
compare with simulation ones. The solid line and dotted line

Figure 9. RCS measurement model in anechoic chamber.

Because the reflected signal power by tag antenna is
reduced by angle and absorber. The reflection angle always

depends on incident angle by Snells law. Therefore some

signals are reflected to RX antenna, another one propagated
to free space or absorbed by absorber between TX and RX
antenna.

Figure 10. The measured results by RCS method at 910 MHz.

IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the miniaturized tag antenna for UHF band
is proposed. The tag antenna with chip is considered to the
passive type which is satisfied the Korean UHF band (908.5
~ 914MHz) and it is miniaturized. A FR-4 dielectric
substrate with permittivity 4.6 is used for simulation and
fabrication. The size of antenna is fabricated to 50 40
1.6 mm by applying meander and folded dipole technique.
The dimension of antenna is reduced 61.7 % than Ref. [4].
The radiation patterns are good agreement with general half
wavelength dipole antenna. We confirm that the tag antenna
with chip is operated at 910 MHz. The evaluation of
proposed antenna is processed by connection of 50 Ohm
port and applying the RCS measurement in the anechoic
chamber. Therefore, we confirmed that the proposed
antenna with chip operate well at 910 MHz band compare
with the 50 Ohm port antenna.
REFERENCES
[1] Geun-Ho Lee and Kil-Young Kim, RFID Technology Tendency, The
Journal of Korea Electromagnetic Engineering Society, Vol.15, No. 5,
pp. 43-49, April. 2004.
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Technology, The Journal of Korea Electromagnetic Engineering
Society, Vol.15, No.5, pp. 21-31, April. 2004.
[3] Mun Leng Ng, Kin Seong Leong and Peter H. Cole, Analysis of
constraints in small UHF RFID tag Design, Microwave, Antenna,
Propagation and EMC Technologies for Wireless Communications,
MAPE 2005. IEEE International Symposium on, Volume 1, pp. 507
510 Aug. 2005.
[4] Kyeong-Sik Min and Jin-Woo Kim, Development of Insensitive Tag
for Variation of Chip Impedance, Korea Electromagnetic Engineering
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[5] Hong-Il Kwon, Young-Jong Sin, Bum-sun Lee, Won-Kyu Choi, HaeWon Son, UHF Band RFID Tag Antenna Design Technic by RCS,
The Journal of Korea Electromagnetic Engineering Society, Vol.16,
No.2, pp. 64 71, April. 2005.