Low-Dropout Regulator in an Active RFID System Using Zigbee Standard with Non-beacon Mode

Abstract

The use of the low-dropout (LDO) voltage regulator in reducing current consumption in the active tag RFID system using the ZigBee standard was studied. The tag was set with a cyclic mode configuration with non-beacon data transmission mode, and was programmed to sleep for 1.5 s and wake up for 5 s to check for signals coming from the reader. The LDO voltage regulator from the TPS7800 series with ultra-low quiescent current was used in the experiments. Two sets of experiments were conducted using tags with and without LDO voltage regulators, respectively. The current consumed by the active tag was measured, and the results showed that the current consumption was reduced to 32% if the LDO was used to regulate the input voltage from 3 V to 2.2 V. The current consumption remained stable although the voltage source dropped from 3 to 1.8 V. The transmission range also increased when the LDO was adopted in the system.