Long reading range for the frequency coded Chipless RFID system based on reflectarray antennas

Abstract

This work proposes the utilization of a high gain and pencil beam reflectarray (RA) antenna at the reader of the frequency coded (FC) chipless radio-frequency identification (RFID) system to minimize the environmental reflections and increase the reading range. Moreover, the reader antenna should operate over ultra wideband (UWB) range of frequencies to accommodate multiple bits. However, the conventional antenna arrays cannot operate over UWB range of frequencies with high gain and pencil beam characteristics. Therefore, a novel UWB RA antenna dedicated to the chipless RFID reader is developed. The developed RA antenna operates over UWB range of frequencies from 4 to 6 GHz to fulfill the requirements of the FC chipless RFID system. Therefore, the antenna is successfully integrated with the FC chipless RFID tags, and a reading range of 1 m is achieved.