Inkjet-Printed UHF RFID Tags on Renewable Materials

Abstract

Radio frequency identification (RFID) provides great potential for different Internet of Things (IOT) applications. In the future, material choices in these IOT devices will have a huge effect on the environment and thus use of renewable materials is a growing trend. In this paper, passive ultra high frequency (UHF) RFID tags were inkjet-printed directly on wood, paper, and cardboard substrates, and their performance was evaluated by measuring two key properties: threshold power and theoretical read range. According to our measurements, the tags on wood showed read ranges of 7 - 8 meters, the tags on cardboard exhibited read ranges of 4 - 7 meters, and the tags printed on paper showed read ranges of 2 - 7 meters through the global UHF RFID band. According to these results, the performance of these inkjet-printed UHF RFID tags is sufficient for many IOT devices and potential applications e.g. in construction and packaging industry.