Tunable Platform Tolerant Antenna Design for RFID and IoT Applications Using Characteristic Mode Analysis

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a key technology to realize IoT (Internet of Things) dreams. RFID technology has been emerging in sensing, identification, tracking, and localization of goods. In order to tag a huge number of things, it is cost-effective to use one RFID antenna for tagging different things. Therefore, in this paper a platform tolerant RFID tag antenna with tunable capability is proposed. The proposed tag antenna is designed and optimized using characteristic mode analysis (CMA). Moreover, this tag antenna consists of a folded patch wrapped around FR 4 substrate and a feeding loop element printed on a paper substrate. The inductive feeding loop is stacked over folded patch and it provides impedance match with RFID chip. Because of separate radiating and feeding element, this tag antenna has a versatility of impedance matching with any RFID chip. Furthermore, this tag is able to cover American RFID band (902–928 MHz) and can be tuned to European RFID band (865–868 MHz) by adding tunable strips. In order to demonstrate platform tolerant operation, the read range of RFID tag is measured by mounting it on different materials. The maximum read range of RFID tag is 4.5 m in free space or on dielectrics and 6.5 m above 200 × 200 mm2 metal plate, respectively.