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Reliable UHF long-range textile-integrated RFID tag based on a compact flexible antenna filament

Reliable UHF long-range textile-integrated RFID tag based on a compact flexible antenna filament
Reliable UHF long-range textile-integrated RFID tag based on a compact flexible antenna filament

This paper details the design, fabrication and testing of flexible textile-concealed Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags for wearable applications in a smart city/smart building environment. The proposed tag designs aim to reduce the overall footprint, enabling textile integration whilst maintaining the read range. The proposed RFID filament is less than 3.5 mm in width and 100 mm in length. The tag is based on an electrically small (0.0033λ 2) high-impedance planar dipole antenna with a tuning loop, maintaining a reflection coefficient less than −21 dB at 915 MHz, when matched to a commercial RFID chip mounted alongside the antenna. The antenna strip and the RFID chip are then encapsulated and integrated in a standard woven textile for wearable applications. The flexible antenna filament demonstrates a 1.8 dBi gain which shows a close agreement with the analytically calculated and numerically simulated gains. The range of the fabricated tags has been measured and a maximum read range of 8.2 m was recorded at 868 MHz Moreover, the tag’s maximum calculated range at 915 MHz is 18 m, which is much longer than the commercially available laundry tags of larger length and width, such as Invengo RFID tags. The reliability of the proposed RFID tags has been investigated using a series of tests replicating textile-based use case scenarios which demonstrates its suitability for practical deployment. Washing tests have shown that the textile-integrated encapsulated tags can be read after over 32 washing cycles, and that multiple tags can be read simultaneously while being washed.

Antenna, E-textiles, Electrically-small antennas, Impedance matching, Internet of Things, RFID, Textile antenna
1424-8220
1-15
Wagih, Mahmoud
7e7b16ba-0c64-4f95-bd3c-99064055f693
Wei, Yang
c6d13914-4f35-459c-8c25-8f8b77b7c5b3
Komolafe, Abiodun
5e79fbab-38be-4a64-94d5-867a94690932
Torah, Russel
7147b47b-db01-4124-95dc-90d6a9842688
Beeby, Stephen
ba565001-2812-4300-89f1-fe5a437ecb0d
Wagih, Mahmoud
7e7b16ba-0c64-4f95-bd3c-99064055f693
Wei, Yang
c6d13914-4f35-459c-8c25-8f8b77b7c5b3
Komolafe, Abiodun
5e79fbab-38be-4a64-94d5-867a94690932
Torah, Russel
7147b47b-db01-4124-95dc-90d6a9842688
Beeby, Stephen
ba565001-2812-4300-89f1-fe5a437ecb0d

Wagih, Mahmoud, Wei, Yang, Komolafe, Abiodun, Torah, Russel and Beeby, Stephen (2020) Reliable UHF long-range textile-integrated RFID tag based on a compact flexible antenna filament. Sensors, 20 (12), 1-15, [3435]. (doi:10.3390/s20123435).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper details the design, fabrication and testing of flexible textile-concealed Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags for wearable applications in a smart city/smart building environment. The proposed tag designs aim to reduce the overall footprint, enabling textile integration whilst maintaining the read range. The proposed RFID filament is less than 3.5 mm in width and 100 mm in length. The tag is based on an electrically small (0.0033λ 2) high-impedance planar dipole antenna with a tuning loop, maintaining a reflection coefficient less than −21 dB at 915 MHz, when matched to a commercial RFID chip mounted alongside the antenna. The antenna strip and the RFID chip are then encapsulated and integrated in a standard woven textile for wearable applications. The flexible antenna filament demonstrates a 1.8 dBi gain which shows a close agreement with the analytically calculated and numerically simulated gains. The range of the fabricated tags has been measured and a maximum read range of 8.2 m was recorded at 868 MHz Moreover, the tag’s maximum calculated range at 915 MHz is 18 m, which is much longer than the commercially available laundry tags of larger length and width, such as Invengo RFID tags. The reliability of the proposed RFID tags has been investigated using a series of tests replicating textile-based use case scenarios which demonstrates its suitability for practical deployment. Washing tests have shown that the textile-integrated encapsulated tags can be read after over 32 washing cycles, and that multiple tags can be read simultaneously while being washed.

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Textile_RFID_Sensors - Author's Original
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 15 June 2020
Published date: 17 June 2020
Keywords: Antenna, E-textiles, Electrically-small antennas, Impedance matching, Internet of Things, RFID, Textile antenna

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 441811
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/441811
ISSN: 1424-8220
PURE UUID: cee0b842-035f-42a6-970e-830dc31dc1d7
ORCID for Mahmoud Wagih: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7806-4333
ORCID for Yang Wei: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6195-8595
ORCID for Abiodun Komolafe: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3618-2390
ORCID for Russel Torah: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5598-2860
ORCID for Stephen Beeby: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-0800-1759

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 29 Jun 2020 16:30
Last modified: 21 Nov 2024 03:00

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Contributors

Author: Mahmoud Wagih ORCID iD
Author: Yang Wei ORCID iD
Author: Abiodun Komolafe ORCID iD
Author: Russel Torah ORCID iD
Author: Stephen Beeby ORCID iD

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