Environmental Effects on the Performance of RFID Antenna for Tire Application

For the design of an RFID antenna will be directly plant in the rubber of the car tire, the proximity effects due to the rubber material have to be considered. The dielectric properties of different parts of rubber tire are analyzed, and the position of RFID tags planted into tire is considered. The effect of rubber material dielectric parameters on the dipole antenna was simulated with HFSS. When the dipole antenna planted in rubber material, the antenna resonant frequency was reduced from 915MHz to 660MHz, compared with in the air. Several type tags were planted into tire to test the read distance with UHF reader. The performance of RFID tags implanted in the rubber material was tested. The experimental results show the read distance of the RFID tag is decreased from 300cm to 21cm, because of the rubber material dielectric properties impacting on the RFID tag.