Guest Editorial Special Issue on IEEE RFID 2018 Conference

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a generic term for a variety of active and passive RF technologies that wirelessly convey object identification information. RFID technologies encompass multiple frequency bands and different mechanisms of information transfer: Low Frequency (LF) and High Frequency (HF) RFID tags typically use inductive coupling, Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) and microwave RFID typically use electromagnetic wave propagation although they often operate in near-field application scenarios as well. RFID transponders have varying degrees of sophistication and their design is often a tradeoff between functionality and cost. At one end of the spectrum, there are active RFID tags that offer on-board battery and memory, sensor integration, active RF transmitter and hence communication range up to kilometers albeit at increased costs. At the other end, passive RFID tags rely on a simple load modulation to backscatter ID back to the reader. The tiny ICs of those passive tags are very complex: they contain more transistors than the Intel 80386 processor in the 1985 IBM PC-AT (that processor had about 275,000 transistors) but have lower power consumption than a honeybee’s brain (which consumes about 10 microwatts) and thus can be RF-powered. These tags are range limited to the order of several meters but, at a price point of several cents per tag, are well suited for large-scale, low-cost automatic identification.