Compact dual band tag antenna design for radio frequency identification (RFID) application

Abstract

The increasing need for automatic identification and object tracking in supply chains has led to the development of radio frequency identification (RFID) systems. High frequency (HF) and ultra-high frequency (UHF) bands are frequently used because of their advantages over other bands. Although many HF and UHF band tags exist, some are unsuitable to handle the hostile environment of a supply chain. Therefore, this paper contributes to the research on a dual band RFID tag antenna operating on both the HF (13.56 MHz) and the UHF (919MHz to 923 MHz) band, the UHF band used in Malaysia, by embracing the advantages of both HF and UHF bands to overcome the previously mentioned problems. The compact design is constructed by locating the UHF band antenna inside the HF band antenna and by reducing the number of turns of the HF band antenna compared to previous designs. The - 10 dB bandwidth for the proposed design covers 12.9MHz to 14.2MHz for the HF band and 914.0MHz to 929.0MHz for the UHF band. The proposed antenna also overcomes the degradation problem by obtaining a high effciency around 94% and a gain of 3.709 dB.