Miniature Circularly Polarized Antenna for Uhf Rfid Handheld Reader: Design and Experiments

Abstract

A low-profile circularly polarized (CP) antenna for a handheld Ultra-High Frequency Radio Frequency Identification (UHF RFID) reader is proposed in this paper. The radiating part on the top substrate is composed of three inverted-F elements rotated 120 • around the center of the structure. A power splitting circuit, placed on the bottom substrate, based on a series transmission line feed delivers equal amplitude to the three IFAs with a sequential 120 • phase shift. Both layers are fabricated on low-cost FR4 material. This design has a disk form factor with a compact size of 35 mm circle radius and an 8.6 mm height. The measurement shows good results with S 11 as lower than −10 dB for the whole band, 3 dB-axial ratio around 110 • (10 MHz of bandwidth), directivity reaching 4.4 dBic, and the total gain of the antenna is 1.9 dBic. In order to validate the proposed antenna performance, a UHF RFID handheld reader is built based on the ThingMagic M6E-Nano module. Different scenarios are investigated to validate the proposed antenna performance in a real environment.

A Compact Broadband Circularly-Polarized Patch Antenna With Wide Axial-Ratio Beamwidth for Universal Uhf Rfid Applications

“…Radio frequency identification (RFID) is developing extensively and is driving Industry 4.0 revolution [1]. Owing to the fast reading rate and long-distance battery-less reading capability, ultra-high-frequency (UHF) RFID has been widely used in logistics management, smart tracking, electronic toll collection, store security, and other fields through non-contact automatic identification of radio frequency signals.…”