Passive Radio Frequency Identification Tags Research Articles

Optically Transparent Flexible Robust Circularly Polarized Antenna for UHF RFID Tags

Optically transparent flexible tag antennas are highly desired for some applications, where unobtrusiveness and capability of mounting on curved surfaces are required. On the other hand, circular polarization minimizes signal degradation due to polarization mismatch between the reader and tag antennas, thus ensuring good communication quality and accuracy. In this letter, we present an optically transparent and flexible radio frequency identification passive tag antenna operating in the ultrahigh frequency band and exhibits circular polarization. It is thin, lightweight, and completely encapsulated inside transparent polymer, which protects it against dust, water, heat, and mechanical stress. The tag antenna is made by utilizing highly flexible and transparent conductive-mesh-polymer composite through a simple and low-cost manufacturing process. The antenna design is based on a planar square ring. It achieves a measured maximum read range of about 8.3 m and approximately 47 MHz (885-932 MHz) 3 dB axial-ratio bandwidth (ARBW).

Security of lightweight mutual authentication protocols

Sensors and IoT (Internet of Things), which include RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification) tags, have witnessed widespread adoption across a wide variety of application domains over the last two decades. These sensors and IoT devices are often a part of distributed sensor networks. As with any distributed processing scenario, there is a need to ensure that these devices provide required security and privacy to the tagged object as well as its bearer. Cryptography has been used to address the security and privacy aspects of RFID tags. Unlike a majority of other IoT devices, the commonly used passive RFID tags are extremely resource-constrained and therefore can accommodate only lightweight operations. Security and privacy concerns still need to be addressed as they remain significant regardless of implementation details. We evaluate RFID-based lightweight mutual authentication protocols that have been recently proposed and identify vulnerabilities.

A Compact and Flexible UHF RFID Tag Antenna for Massive IoT Devices in 5G System.

Upcoming 5th-generation (5G) systems incorporate physical objects (referred to as things), which sense the presence of components such as gears, gadgets, and sensors. They may transmit many kinds of states in the smart city context, such as new deals at malls, safe distances on roads, patient heart rhythms (especially in hospitals), and logistic control at aerodromes and seaports around the world. These serve to form the so-called future internet of things (IoT). From this futuristic perspective, everything should have its own identity. In this context, radio frequency identification (RFID) plays a specific role, which provides wireless communications in a secure manner. Passive RFID tags carry out work using the energy harvested among massive systems. RFID has been habitually realized as a prerequisite for IoT, the combination of which is called IoT RFID (I-RFID). For the current scenario, such tags should be productive, low-profile, compact, easily mountable, and have eco-friendly features. The presently available tags are not cost-effective and have not been proven as green tags for environmentally friendly IoT in 5G systems nor are they suitable for long-range communications in 5G systems. The proposed I-RFID tag uses the meandering angle technique (MAT) to construct a design that satisfies the features of a lower-cost printed antenna over the worldwide UHF RFID band standard (860–960 MHz). In our research, tag MAT antennas are fabricated on paper-based Korsnäs by screen- and flexo-printing, which have lowest simulated effective outcomes with dielectric variation due to humidity and have a plausible read range (RR) for European (EU; 866–868 MHz) and North American (NA; 902–928 MHz) UHF band standards. The I-RFID tag size is reduced by 36% to 38% w.r.t. a previously published case, the tag gain has been improved by 23.6% to 33.12%, and its read range has been enhanced by 50.9% and 59.6% for EU and NA UHF bands, respectively. It provides impressive performance on some platforms (e.g., plastic, paper, and glass), thereby providing a new state-of-the-art I-RFID tag with better qualities in 5G systems.

A novel grouping proof authentication protocol for lightweight devices:GPAPXR+

Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags that meet EPC Gen2 standards are used in many fields such as supply chain operations. The number of the RFID tags, smart cards, wireless sensor nodes, and Internet of things devices is increasing day by day and the areas where they are used are expanding. These devices are very limited in terms of the resources they have. For this reason, many security mechanisms developed for existing computer systems cannot be used for these devices. In order to ensure secure communication, it is necessary to provide authentication process between these lightweight devices and the devices they communicate. The authentication process is the first step that allows the parties to trust each other for communication. Moreover, the authentication protocol should allow simultaneous verification of multiple lightweight devices. Therefore, grouping proof authentication protocol is required. In this study, a new grouping proof authentication protocol is developed for lightweight devices. The proposed protocol implemented on wireless identification and sensing platform passive RFID tag, uses embedded advanced encryption standard encryption method to encrypt transmitted data. Security of the protocol was first evaluated and verified theoretically, then by a tool used for automatic verification of security protocols, called Scyther tool.

Passive RFID-Based Diaper Moisture Sensor

Low-energy battery-less passive RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags will be an integral part of the upcoming IoT (Internet of Things) revolution. Applications for such tag-systems include medical applications, inventory management, security, localization, household application, etc. Currently, there is a growing demand for passive RFID-based diaper moisture sensors in the market. The target populations for such technology include infants, disabled individuals, and senior citizens. The goal of the moisture sensor is to eliminate the risks related to infection and other issues caused by the failure to remove a wet diaper in a timely manner. Desired characteristics of such a sensor include low cost, easy integration, good dynamic range in sensing metric, a long read range, as well as being comfortable to the wearer. We propose a passive UHF (Ultra High Frequency, 902-928 MHz) RFID-based diaper moisture sensor that is low-cost, user-friendly, reusable, washable, environment-friendly and comes with an extended on-body read range of 3.6 meters with baby diapers and 4.4 meters with adult diapers. The external reader unit is connected to the internet or a local network, and will automatically notify the parents or caregivers as soon as the presence of moisture is detected.

An algorithm for automatic grasping an UHF RFID passive tag

This paper proposes an automatic system which allows a mobile robot to reach a tagged object in an unknown environment, exploiting the Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology. It is assumed that the robot has an odometry system (e.g., wheel encoders) and an RFID reader which provides it with phase-shift measurements of the RFID signal backscattered by the tagged object. Since phases are ambiguous measurements of the tag-reader distance, a Multi-Hypothesis Extended Kalman Filter is proposed to on-line extract, by fusing phase measurements with odometry readings, the range and the bearing of the unknown tag. Once the relative position of the tag is known, a control algorithm is applied to drive the robot toward the desired destination. Numerical results are reported to illustrate the approach.

A Standalone RFID-Based Mobile Robot Navigation Method Using Single Passive Tag

This article proposes a standalone radio frequency identification (RFID)-based mobile robot navigation method, in which a mobile robot equipped with reader antennas can be continuously guided to a static object marked with a single passive UHF RFID tag. An observation model based on the RFID phase difference is built and integrated into a particle filter, by which the instantaneous relative position between the mobile robot and the tagged object can be detected in real time. Based on the position information extracted from the RFID system, the mobile robot adjusts its pose to move toward the RFID-tagged object. Compared with the existing RFID-based mobile robot navigation methods, the proposed method requires no external sensors other than the RFID and requires only a single passive tag. Experiments using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) RFID devices are performed, and the results indicate that the mobile robot can satisfactorily realize navigation task with a distance accuracy of 4.04 cm and a bearing accuracy of 2.23°. The proposed method is well applicable for the navigation scenes in which the absolute position of the tagged target object is not known beforehand. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Note to Practitioners</i> —UHF radio frequency identification (RFID) has been widely applied as an asset management ID sensor in many fields. RFID-based mobile robot navigation technology can further increase its application value as a location sensor. This article proposes a standalone RFID-based mobile robot navigation method, in which the reference tag and the external sensors other than RFID are both not required. In the proposed method, only a single passive tag is attached to the static target object. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method can enable navigation task with good performance in situations in which the absolute navigation goal position is not known in advance.

Hermetic fusion of diamond micro-components with silicon

Implantable devices which interact with neuronal systems and last for the lifetime of the recipient are an emerging field in medical research, diagnostics and therapeutics. These devices often contain sensitive micro-electronics ranging from passive radio-frequency identification tags to active sensors and stimulators. Therefore, such devices require robust and biocompatible packaging. There is a strong desire to reduce the size of such devices, enable wireless communication methods and protect these devices in the body for many decades. Diamond is a biopermanent material that provides the chemical inertness and mechanical stability to ensure long operational life of implanted devices and can also exhibit excellent optical and radiofrequency transparency. For some applications, the transparency of diamond is used to enable optical power and data communication with the encapsulated electronics. The final assembly of the device often requires the joining of diamond to diamond, and such joints are challenging to fabricate. Here we describe a new method of hermetically fusing diamond to diamond using a thin silicon interlayer as a braze material. The strong bond forms due to SiC formation at the interface of the materials. A 3.5 × 3.5 × 0.3 mm diamond box was formed from a thermal grade diamond base with a thin, transparent diamond lid. We show by helium leak detection and non-destructive optical methods, that the package is hermetically sealed to better than 2.2 × 10−9 cm3 atm/s of helium. The method is an industrially relevant route to forming long lived implantable diamond packages, in particular the incorporation of transparent diamond windows into the package to enable for optical power and data communication.

Wearable Chipless Radio-Frequency Identification Tags for Biomedical Applications: A Review [Antenna Applications Corner

Wearable sensing technology and body-centric wireless systems have received widespread attention due to their tremendous prospective in e-health, the Internet of Things (IoT), and smart cities. Low-cost textile antennas for body-centric radio-frequency identification (RFID) sensing technology are the future for such wearable sensing systems. The antennas can sustain bending and stretching and offer a maintenance-free communication link with the human body, environment, and IoT infrastructure. Its sensing technology provides the seamless real-time wireless monitoring of important physiological signals. Understanding its significance in emerging applications, this article reviews wearable passive RFID tag sensors that monitor various physical parameters. The primary goal of these research works is to design RFID sensors and test their performances in various environmental conditions. Chip-based RFID sensors are too expensive for mass deployment, hence, chipless RFID tag sensors have become a low-cost and maintenance-free alternative, addressing market demands for the emerging IoT, where trillions of such sensors will be used. Observing the significance of the technology, a few important design parameters, such as tag radar cross section (RCS) and various form factors of tag antennas, are examined in this article. The article also presents some emerging applications of the developed sensors.

Internet of Things (IoT) Based Smart Shop (S-SHOP) System with RFID Technique

Billing system technology in the market nowadays is less efficient in parallel with revolution of technology. Conventional method widely uses a barcode scanner that has disadvantages as it is a manual system and requires man power. Besides that, the conventional method does not store the information such as warranty of the product and the information of a buyer. Using the smart shop billing system using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) reader and RFID tag, the system will become more efficient and automated. The system consists of two main elements which are passive RFID tag (125 kHz) and RFID reader (ID-20LA) that has similar function with a barcode tag and a barcode scanner. For the hardware components, the Espresso Lite V2.0 acts as a microcontroller and UC00C acts as Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) converter and Arduino IDE is used as a platform to link between hardware and software. The system is completed with the Internet of Things (IoT) technique to make sure the system can be operated wirelessly. As a result, all the information from the reader will be sent to Google spreadsheet as a cloud to store the information about the item to generate GUI bill. In conclusion this proposed system also uses a real time tracking.

A theoretical and experimental study of passive computational radio frequency identification tags

AbstractThe investigation and optimization of the RF frontend of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags represents a crucial topic when looking for an increased tag performance. This work studies the RF frontend of three state‐of‐the‐art passive computational RFID tags: AMS SL900a Dev Kit, Farsens Spider Eval, and WISP 5.1. Given a module‐based approach, the antenna, the matching network, the RF energy harvesting, and the load modulation are reviewed both theoretically and experimentally. The influence of a set of properties, corresponding to these modules, on the overall RFID tag performance is evaluated using a tag read range measurement.

Guest Editorial: Special Issue on IEEE RFID 2019 Conference

With the proliferation of the Internet of Things, there is an increased demand to enhance every day physical objects with sensors and communication abilities so that they can have digital counterparts (“digital twins”) in a connected world. While many solutions based on protocols such as ZigBee, Bluetooth, ANT, LoRa, LPWAN, NB-IoT, HaLow, etc. do exist, RFID technology presents a compelling alternative. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a generic term for a variety of active and passive RF technologies. 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 transmitters and hence communication range up to kilometers albeit at increased costs. At the other end, passive and semi-passive RFID tags rely on a simple load modulation to backscatter ID and data back to the reader over several meters distance. Passive RFID tags, in particular, lend themselves well for applications needing large-scale, low-cost, automatic identification and are a good option for imparting digital identity to a host of physical assets. Industry alliances such as the NFC forum (for HF RFID) and the RAIN RFID alliance (for UHF RFID) have been formed to motivate and promote these efforts.

RFID RSS Fingerprinting System for Wearable Human Activity Recognition

Alternative healthcare solutions have been identified as a viable approach to ameliorate the increasing demand for telehealth and prompt healthcare delivery. Moreover, indoor ocalization using different technologies and approaches have greatly contributed to alternative healthcare solutions. In this paper, a cost-effective, radio frequency identification (RFID)-based indoor location system that employs received signal strength (RSS) information of passive RFID tags is presented. The proposed system uses RFID tags placed at different positions on the target body. The mapping of the analysed data against a set of reference position datasets is used to accurately track the vertical and horizontal positioning of a patient within a confined space in real-time. The Euclidean distance model achieves an accuracy of 98% for all sampled activities. However, the accuracy of the activity recognition algorithm performs below the threshold performance for walking and standing, which is due to similarities in the target height, weight and body density for both activities. The obtained results from the proposed system indicate significant potentials to provide reliable health measurement tool for patients at risk.

Hybrid Indoor Positioning System for First Responders

In the last decade, many efforts have been devoted to indoor localization and positioning. In this paper, a hybrid indoor localization system has been developed within the European project REFIRE for emergency situations. The REFIRE solution estimates the user’s pose according to a prediction-correction scheme. The user is equipped with a waist-mounted inertial measurement unit and a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader. In the correction phase, the estimation is updated by means of geo-referenced information fetched from passive RFID tags predeployed into the environment. Accurate position correction is obtained through a deep analysis of the RFID system radiation patterns. To this end, extensive experimental trials have been performed to assess the RFID system performance, both in static and dynamic operating conditions. Experimental validation in realistic environments shows the effectiveness of the proposed indoor localization system, even during long-last missions and/or using a limited number of tags.

Design of Double-Gate Tri-Active Layer Channel Based IGZO Thin-Film Transistor for Improved Performance of Ultra-Low-Power RFID Rectifier

In a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) circuit, the rectifier plays a vital role since it converts the received RF energy from a distant transmitter (reader) to power the entire RF circuit of the passive tag. The thin-film transistors have the potential to affect the rectifier circuit performance using the channel structural modification in the device to accomplish better gate-control for low-power operations. In this paper, the authors have presented a novel design of a double-gate amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O (IGZO) based thin-film transistor with a tri-active layer channel structure. Further, the experimental characterization of the device has been implemented using the SPICE model to analyze the device performance in the rectifier circuits. The simulation reports the competitive results with an improved rectifier performance using the proposed structure. The performance of ultra-low-power rectifier topologies has been compared with the conventional rectifier circuit. Among others, the differential rectifier circuit arrangement has a high power conversion efficiency of 20.06 % for low input 0.45 V-0.61 V, whereas Self-$\text{V}_{\mathrm {TH}}$ -Cancellation (SVC) configuration optimum power consumption is $0.14~\mu W$ . The promising results suggest the device deployment in the passive RFID tags and implantable devices in ultra-low-power integrated circuits.

XORSHIFTUL+: A Novel Hybrid Random Number Generator for Internet Of Things And Wireless Sensor Network Applications

There are an increasing number of lightweight devices such as smart cards, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, wireless sensor nodes and devices associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) concept, all of which need effective and lightweight security structures. One of the basic elements used in authentication protocols is the nonce values that are generated by PRNGs. Also random numbers are used for encryption process in secure communication. Proposed PRNG has demonstrated great suitability for devices with limited resources in terms of performance, resource usage and randomness. This generator is tested with NIST statistical test suite (NIST STS), which is one of the most comprehensive randomness test tools. It is also implemented, tested on wireless identification and sensing platform (WISP) passive RFID tag and compared with well-known PRNGs. As a result of the comparisons, it has better results than its rivals.

Screen Printed Security-Button for Radio Frequency Identification Tags

Radio frequency identification (RFID) security is a relevant matter. The wide spread of RFID applications in the general society and the persistent attempts to safeguard it confirm it, especially since its use involves payments and the store or transmission of sensitive information. In this contribution, we present an innovative solution for improving the security of RFID passive tags through the use of a screen printed button, that allows the reception and transmission only when a certain level of physical pressure normal to its plane is applied. The materials and fabrication technology used demonstrate an easy to implement and cost-effective system, valuable in several scenarios where the user has straight contact with the tags and where its usage is direct and intentional.

Improving efficiency of RFID-based traceability system for perishable food by utilizing IoT sensors and machine learning model

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has significantly improved in the past few years and is presently sought for implementation in the identification and traceability of perishable food in the food sector to safeguard food safety and quality. It is currently considered a worthy successor to the barcode system and has significant advantages for monitoring products in the perishable food supply chain (PFSC). The present study proposes a traceability system that utilizes RFID and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. RFID technology can be used to track and trace perishable food while IoT sensors can be used to measure temperature and humidity during storage and transportation. Furthermore, it is important that RFID gates can identify the direction of tags and whether products are being received or shipped through the gate. In this study, machine-learning models are utilized to detect the direction of passive RFID tags. The input features are derived from receive signal strength (RSS) and the timestamp of tags. The proposed system has been tested in the perishable food supply chain and has revealed significant benefits to managers and customers by providing real-time product information and complete temperature and humidity history. In addition, by integrating a machine-learning model into the RFID gate, tagged products that move in or out through a gate can be correctly identified and thus improve the efficiency of the traceability system.

A Novel Kite-Shaped Chipless RFID Tag for Low-Profile Applications

In this paper a novel, compact 10-bit chipless radio frequency identification (RFID) tag with stable readable characteristics is proposed. The tag is composed of several concentric novel kite-shaped loop resonators. The desired data sequence is obtained by the insertion or removal of nested elements, offering a 1:1 data bit to resonance correspondence. Each data sequence is encoded in the spectral domain of the tag. The proposed tag shows operability at different polarizations and incident angles of the impinging electromagnetic waves. Operating within the ultra-wideband (UWB), the tag is realized on the Roger RT/duroid® 5880 substrate having physical dimensions of 13.55 × 13.55 mm2. The measurement results of the design reveal a high code density and spectral efficiency of 5.44 bits/cm2 and 2 bits/GHz, respectively. The compact and robust passive chipless RFID tag having scalable data storage potential can be deployed in numerous low-profile applications such as those of wearable and healthcare.

A Novel Finger-Controlled Passive RFID Tag Design for Human-Machine Interaction.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) has shown its potential in human–machine interaction thanks to its inherent function of identification and relevant physical information of signals, but complex data processing and undesirable input accuracy restrict its application and promotion in practical use. This paper proposes a novel finger-controlled passive RFID tag design for human–machine interaction. The tag antenna is based on a dipole antenna with a separated T-match structure, which is able to adjust the state of the tag by the press of a finger. The state of the proposed tag can be recognized directly by the code received by the RFID reader, and no complex data processing is needed. Since the code is hardly affected by surroundings, the proposed tag is suitable to be used as a wireless switch or control button in multiple scenarios. Moreover, arrays of the proposed tag with rational tag arrangements could contribute to a series of manual control devices, such as a wireless keyboard, a remote controller, and a wireless gamepad, without batteries. A 3 × 4 array of the finger-controlled tag is presented to constitute a simple passive RFID keyboard as an example of the applications of the proposed tag array and it refers to the arrangement of a keypad and can achieve precise, convenient, quick, and practical commands and text input into machines by pressing the tags with fingers. Simulations and measurements of the proposed tag and tag array have been carried out to validate their performances in human–machine interaction.