Read Range Sensitivity of Embedded RFID Tags in Commercial Tires

Abstract

ABSTRACT Radiofrequency (RFID) identification is a commonly used technology in retail stores, highway toll payment transceivers, payment cards for mass transit systems, electronic access cards for office buildings, and many other applications. The use of RFID in tires can increase efficiencies of tracking manufacturing, distribution, retreading, and tire usage, resulting in reduced costs. Previous research has shown difficulty in obtaining a useful read range from RFID tags in tires, although most of these studies have involved passenger car tires that do not have steel body plies. In this work, commercially available RFID tags with helical dipole antennas were embedded into commercial tires of four different sizes. The difference in size between the largest and smallest tire used was 10%. These commercial tires have steel belts as well as steel body plies. Other than dimensions, all of the tires had identical tire constructions and used the same rubber compounds. Identical tags were embedded at the same location in all tires. Measurements were performed on multiple tires per size, which show that the read range of the helical dipole antenna has a high sensitivity to tire size. The sensitivity of the read range due to tire size is undesirable, because it means that sufficient read range may not be achieved in all tire constructions with the same tag.