RFID Tag Antenna Design and its EM Simulation

Based Measurement Method

Ning Zhang1,2, Xiuping Li1,2
1
Key laboratory of Universal Wireless Communications, Ministry of Education
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China
2
State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, 210096, Nanjing
Email: xpli@bupt.edu.cn

Abstract- A UHF band inductively coupled loop feeding RFID tag
antenna and its EM simulation based measurement method are
proposed in this paper. A de-embedding method based on EM
simulation is proposed for accurate RFID tag antenna
measurement using coaxial line and SMA connector. The key
dimensions of antenna and their effects on antenna’s
performance are studied. The measured result shows the antenna
presents 100MHz (880~980MHz) bandwidth under the condition
of voltage standing wave ratio less than 2(VSWR<2) , and it
agrees well with the simulated result. The proposed antenna
presents 2dBi gain at the working frequency with dimension of
90mm ×16mm .
I. INTRODUCTION
Radio frequency identification (RFID) is an automatic
non-contact bidirectional communication identification
technology taking advantage of electromagnetic induction and
radiation. A basic RFID system comprises a radio-scanner
unit, called a reader, and a set of remote transponders, denoted
as tags. The tags include an antenna and a microchip. The
reading range of a RFID system is dependent on the gain of
tag antenna, the power transmission coefficient which is
determined by the matching between tag antenna and
microchip, and the power sensitivity. So the tag antenna
which determines the system’s reading range plays a key role
in the overall RFID system.
Most of tag antennas for UHF RFID systems are fabricated
as modified printed dipoles. The design goal of the tag
antenna is to achieve good matching between tag antenna and
microchip in a wide frequency band.
Usually, the resistance of microchips is between 5~80Ωand
the reactance is between -300~-50Ω. So the tag antenna
should have inductive input reactance for the conjugate
impedance matching with the microchip.
Recently, several researchers have proposed many tag
antenna structures for specific RFID applications, such as
double UT wideband antenna in[2], printed dipole antenna is
studied in[3], folded dipole antenna in [4]. But these
antennas’ manufacture and conjugate matching to RFID IC is
not convenient, since they have no formula for reference to
guide the design of antenna.
The existed methods to measure the input impedance of
UHF RFID tag antenna is as follows: using external balun;
forming a big ground plane and using the mirror theory; or
using equivalent two ports scattering matrix to calculate
impedance of tag antenna [5]. All of these method are
complex and need extra component. So a simple measurement
method based on EM simulation is proposed in this paper.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In section Ⅱ,
the antenna structure is presented. The key dimensions of the
antenna and their effects on antenna’s performance are also
analyzed in this part. Section Ⅲ describes the EM simulation
based measurement method and the measured result. The
conclusion is drawn in section Ⅳ.
II. ANTENNA STRUCTURE
The main design task of RFID tag antenna is to achieve
good matching between microchip and tag antenna, which
means small power reflected when the antenna transports
power its received to microchip. Power reflection coefficient
is defined as [6]:
∗
Z - ZC
S11 = A (1)
ZA + ZC
where ZA is tag antenna’s impedance, ZC is microchip’s
impedance.
A. The feeding technology
Dipole antenna with inductively coupled loop feeding
structure and its equivalent circuit are shown in Fig.1 [7].
d l
w
g
(a)
(b)
Figure 1． (a) Dipole antenna with inductively coupled feeding structure
(b) The equivalent circuit
The parameters RA , CA and LA give the circuit model of the radiating body
near its (series) resonance.
The input impedance seen from the loop’s body terminals is
 (2πfM ) 2 antenna, these dimensions are selected to have resonance
Zin = Z loop + = Rin + jX in (2) frequency at 920MHz.
ZA While, the input impedance of the antenna is decided
where Zloop=j2πfLloopis the loop’s impedance, Zloopcan be mostly by d，w and l. Fig.3 gives the curves of antenna’s input
calculated by (3): impedance versus the three key dimensions.
2lw 2lw
Lloop = 4{l ln( ) + w ln( ) 160

a(l + l + w )
2 2
a( w + l + w )
2 2 140

Input Impedance (Oh

120
real(zin) imag(zin)
+ 2[a + l 2 + w 2 − (l + w)]} 100
80
(3) 60

where units of l, w and a are cm, unit of Lloop is nH, and 40

20
a=radius of thin wire.
0
The mutual inductance M can be achieved through 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 2 3 4
analytical equation as (4) shows: d (mm)

μ0 l w+d (a)
M= ln( ) (4)
2π d 250

B. Antenna structure and dimension 200

Input Impedance(Ohm)
The Proposed antenna is fabricated by printing silver on a
150
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) substrate(ε r=2.7) with
a thickness of 100um..The impedance of the microchip 100
real(zin) imag(zin)
specified in this study is (20-j150)Ω . The antenna consists of
50
an inductively coupled feeding loop and meander line, .Fig. 2
shows the structure of the proposed antenna. 0
15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31
l (mm)

(b)

200
180
160
Input Impedance(Ohm)

140
120
100
80 real(zin) imag(zin)
60
40
20
0
6.2 6.7 7.2 7.7 8.2 8.7 9.2 9.7 10.2
w (mm)

(c)
Figure 2． Antenna structure Figure 3． Curves of antenna’s input impedance versus the three key
(a) Top view (b)Side view dimensions
(a) The input impedance versus d
(b) The input impedance versus l
Table 1 shows the dimensions of proposed antenna. (c) The input impedance versus w
TABLE Ⅰ
PROPOSED ANTENNA DIMENSIONS From Fig.3 (b) and Fig.3 (c), we can see both the resistance
Meander wd 16 mm Inductively w 3.7 mm
dipole ld 90 mm coupled l 21 mm
and reactance of the input impedance will be increased by
antenna wa 2 mm loop d 1 mm increasing of w and l. It because when increasing w and l ,
s 0.8 mm feeding g 2 mm both of the Lloop and M will be increase, and it can be
deduced by (3) and (4).
C. Key dimensions and their influence on antenna’s When increasing d, Lloop is a constant, and M will
performance decrease. So the resistance of the input impedance will be
The dimensions in structure of meander dipole antenna part decreased deduce by (3). We can see this conclusion from
is mainly effects the resonance frequency. For the proposed the Fig.3 (a).
 From Fig.3, we can also see the proposed antenna can be
tuned to match with the chip impedance with resistance
between 5~40Ωand reactance between 100-250Ωby tuning
d ,w and l.
Ⅲ. ANTENNA MEASUREMENT
Fig.4(a) shows the measurement platform. The length of the
SMA connector which is between the VNA calibration plane
and the antenna is 32 mm. The block diagram of the
measurement setup is shown in Fig.4(b).
4) Finally, using ZAnt=VAnt/IAnt, we can get the
Z-parameter of the antenna..
The transmission parameter of SMA connector, [ASMA], is
obtained by using Ansoft HFSS simulation software. First, the
total input impedance of SMA connector and antenna,
denoted as Ztotal-simu, and the input impedance of the
antenna ,denoted as Zant-simu, are obtained by using HFSS.
Then the equivalent circuit of the SMA connector can be
obtained, and it is shown in Fig.5.
L

C Zant

Ztotal

Figure 5． The equivalent circuit of the SMA connector

The L in the equivalent circuit is about 2nH, and C is about
0.4pF.
The simulated and measured input impedance at calibration
plane are shown in Fig.6.
200
180
Input Impedance (Ohm) 160
140
(a) real(zin)_mea
imag(zin)
120
100 imag(zin)_mea
80 real(zin)_simu
real(zin)
60
imag(zin)_simu
40
20
0
800 820 840 860 880 900 920 940 960 980 1000
Frequency (MHz)

Figure 6. The simulated and measured input impedance at calibration plane

The simulated and measured input impedance at
(b) measurement plane are shown in Fig.6.
Figure 4． (a) the measurement platform (b) the block diagram of the
measurement setup 180
The VNA offers high measurement accuracy with standard
160
calibration, and the standard calibration can only be done at
140
the ends of the test cables, which is the calibration plane as
Input Impedance (Ohm)

shown in Fig.4(b), instead of the input port of the antenna 120 real(zin)_simu imag(zin)

under test, which is the measurement plan in Fig.4(b). 100

imag(zin)_simu
So, the de-embedding technology is used to remove the 80
real(zin)_mea
effect of the SMA connector and then the input impedance of 60
the antenna can be obtained[8]. imag(zin)_mea real(zin)
40
The de-embedding steps are as follows:
20
1) Measured the S-parameter Stotal including antenna and
SMA connector; 0

2) From the Fig.4 and the definition of SMA connector’s 800 820 840 860 880 900 920 940 960 980 1000

transmission parameter, denoted as [ASMA], we obtain: Frequency (MHz)

[VTotal，ITotal]’ =[ASMA]·[VAnt, IAnt]’; Figure 7. The simulated and measured input impedance at measurement
3) Using matrix operation, we get: plane
[VAnt, IAnt]’=[ASMA]-1·[VTotal，ITotal]’;
 Fig.7 above shows the measured and the simulated input
impedance results are agree well. The measured reactance is a
little smaller than the simulated one at the frequencies
between 800-900MHz, while a little larger at the 900-1000
MHz. The measured resistance is a little smaller than the
simulated one at the frequency bands: 840-910MHz and
920-980MHz.
The return loss of the proposed antenna can be obtained
using the equation (1). The Measured and simulated return
loss of the proposed antenna is shown in Fig.8. The measured
return loss of the proposed antenna using equivalent two ports
scattering matrix method is also shown in Fig.8. The two
methods have the almost the same accuracy. The proposed
method is simpler than the other one which has to do a lot of
mathematical calculations and can’t evaluate the measured
result during the measurement.
0
-5
S11_simu
S11_mea
s11_mea_ two ports
-10
Return Loss(d
-15
-20
-25
-30
800 820 840 860 880 900 920
Frequency (MHz)
Figure 8． The simulated and measured return loss of the proposed
antenna
As the Fig.8 above shows, the measured bandwidth under
the condition of voltage standing wave ratio less than
2(VSWR<2) of the proposed antenna is 100MHz ( 880 MHz
~980MHz ), which is width enough for most applications.
The simulated radiation patterns in E-plane (dashed line)
and H-plane (solid line) for the proposed antenna are shown
in Fig.9. The HPBW in the E-plane is about 84°.
Figure 9. Simulated radiation patterns for E-plane and H-plane
From Fig.10, we can see that the simulated antenna gain for
the proposed antenna is above 2 dBi in the frequency band of
880MHz~980MHz.
3.0
2.5
2.0
Gain (dBi)
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
0.5 0.7 0.9 1.1 1.3
Frequency (GHz)
Figure 10． Simulated antenna gain
III. CONCLUSION
A UHF band inductively coupled loop feeding RFID tag
antenna and its EM simulation based measurement method
are proposed in this paper. The key dimensions of antenna and
their effects on antenna’s performance are studied. The
measured result shows the antenna presents 100MHz
(880~980MHz) bandwidth under the condition of voltage
standing wave ratio less than 2(VSWR<2) , and it agrees well
with the simulated result. The proposed antenna presents 2dBi
gain at the working frequency with dimension of 90mm
×16mm. .Further work will be focus on antenna parameter
optimization, tag measurement and encapsulation [9].
940 960 980 1000
IV. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors thank for the support from State Key
Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Nanjing(K200915),
Program for new Century Excellent Talents
2007(NECT-07-0108), National High Technology Research
Plan of China(863) 2006AA04A02, 2007AA04A103 and
Beijing Nova Program 2008A050.
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