Low-cost Conformal UHF RFID Tag Antenna for Plastic Water Bottles

A novel conformal UHF RFID tag antenna for tagging plastic water bottles is presented. The proposed tag consists of nested-slots integrated with a dipole. This configuration provides a good impedance match with a chip on the surface of water bottles at the cost of reduced antenna gain as compared to gain in free space. However, the label-type tag can be readable up to 3 m in US RFID band, when mounted on water bottles. On the other hand, the tag has a read range of 2.5 m in free space. Moreover, the proposed tag is compact (40×14 mm’), low-cost and can be easily printed on the surface of bottles.