A Selective Ink Deposition Method for the Cost-Performance Optimization of Inkjet-Printed UHF RFID Tag Antennas

Abstract

A selective ink deposition method is proposed for fabricating inkjet-printed passive UHF RFID tag antennas with optimized cost-performance ratios. The deposition method is based on identifying areas with high surface current densities on a given tag antenna and applying additional silver nanoparticle ink onto such areas to increase tag read range. In this paper, the proposed method is experimentally verified by utilizing the method on a small dipole tag antenna. Several ink deposition schemes are created, and their read range performances and ink consumptions are presented.

UHF RFID label nanometer printing technology and its application in smart libraries

“…Apart from the advantages of good material adaptability and simple process, inkjet printing can save materials, shorten the production cycle and its digital control features facilitate the mass production of UHF RFID tags which reduces the costs, meeting the requirement of green economy. With higher precision, it is suitable for printing miniaturization labels [11] and is the most promising method for ultra-high frequency RFID tag antenna manufacturing in the future.…”

An optimized ink-reducing hollowed-out arm meander dipole antenna structure for printed RFID tags

“…It can be noted from Figs 5(a) and 5(c) that the current density along the centerline of the fully filled antenna arms is relatively small. Therefore, it may be predicted that introducing some narrow, ink-reducing hollowed-out areas along the centerline of the printed dipole arms should have little impact on the antenna radiation performance, according to the design concept suggested in [13]. Moreover, it may be observed from Figs 5(b) and 5(d) that the in-phase current density for the proposed hollowed-out an optimized ink-reducing hollowed-out arm meander dipole antenna structure 471 arm dipole antennas is higher along the edge of the antenna arms compared with that of conventional dipole counterparts.…”

“…[8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. In [8], a grid pattern is employed for antenna structures with large conductive areas such as tip-loaded dipole antennas, but the results demonstrate that forming grid patterns on small tag antennas greatly degrades the antenna performance.…”

“…In [9,10], a narrow-line RFID dipole antenna structure is proposed, but the resulting design achieves low antenna gain and poor read range performance. In [11][12][13], the thickness of conductive layers in different areas of the antenna is selectively optimized. This approach yields quite good results; however, the reprinting process to formulate variable levels of conductive layer thickness is quite complicated and time consuming.…”

Inkjet printing of UHF antennas on corrugated cardboards for packaging applications

“…by Amin et al or Rida et al, focusing on optimized antenna designs regarding the dielectric properties of the used paper substrates and the characteristics of the antenna [7][8][9][10][11]. Next to paper substrates, many publications report about the inkjet printing of antennas on nonabsorbent substrates such as FR4, glass, kapton or PET [14][15][16][17]. Virtanen et al [18] deposited a similar silver ink as used in this contribution on cardboard substrates.…”