Triangular patch-based wideband long-range UHF RFID tag for metallic environment

Abstract A long-range, compact, wideband Ultra High Frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) tag is proposed. The design features a triangular patch, designed to achieve wideband impedance matching. The tag exhibit −10 dB bandwidth from 753 to 917 MHz with a substrate thickness of 1.575 mm. The overall size of the tag is 121 × 30 × 1.575 mm 3 . The gain and bandwidth for varying substrate thickness is investigated. Further, two parasitic strips are designed alongside the patch to operate the tag more effectively at Federal Communications Commission (FCC) band in simultaneous with European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) band with increased read range. With parasitic strips, the tag exhibits −10 dB bandwidth from 766.5 to 896.5 MHz and 905 to 943.6 MHz which covers the bandwidth requirements in Europe, Asia, and North America. A prototype of the proposed tag is fabricated and experimentally tested with the RFID Higgs 4 IC. The tag provides a read range of over 14 m in 865–870 MHz and 13 m in 902–928 MHz when the tag is operated in free space and a read range of over 10.2 m in 865–870 MHz range and 10.3 m in 902–928 MHz range when mounted on a metallic surface of size of 200 × 200 m 2 . The performance parameters of the designed tag are also compared with some commercially available designs.