Design of an Ultra-Wideband Uhf Rfid Reader Antenna for Wearable Ankle Tracking Applications

Abstract

In this paper, a broadband reader antenna is designed and manufactured for wearable ankle strap applications. The frequency range covered for S 11 < −10 dB is from 850 MHz to 1650 MHz with dipole like radiation pattern in free space. The proposed broadband antenna is manufactured with a semi-flex (Taconic RF-35) and flexible (Kapton) substrates. A good agreement between simulations and measurements has been achieved. Prototypes performances have been tested by measuring the reading distance. The maximum reading distance obtained is about 1.46 m at 865 MHz with an output power of the transmitter (P T X) of 25 dBm. Results of functional RFID test show that the proposed antenna can be used as an RFID reader antenna when it is placed on the ankle of the human body.

Wearable Metasurface-Enabled Quasi-Yagi Antenna for UHF RFID Reader With End-Fire Radiation Along the Forearm

“…Moreover, we classified the antennas based on the radiation pattern to Type 1 and Type 2, which denote radiation to an off-body direction and along the body surface, respectively. Even though the antennas from several other works, especially [27], [48], and [49], provide notably high gain, among the radiation pattern Type 2 antennas, our antenna provides the highest read range. However, it should be noted that the antenna [48] is not originally proposed as a reader antenna, operates at 2.47 GHz and thus it's hypothetical read range is affected also by the shorter operating wavelength.…”

“…In this regard, much research has been conducted for achieving efficient and seamlessly cloth-integrable antennas for UHF RFID tags [22]- [26]. However, antennas for wearable RFID readers remain relatively less studied, yet they have been gaining more attention in the recent years [27]- [30].…”

“…In the previous research, wearable reader antennas attached to gloves [29], wrapped around the wrist [28] and ankle [27] have been studied. They all read the tags from a direction orthogonal to the body surface where the reader antenna is worn.…”