870 PIERS Proceedings, Xi’an, China, March 22–26, 2010

Universal UHF RFID Rose Reader Antenna

T. G. Abo-Elnaga1 , E. A. F. Abdallah1 , and H. El-Hennawy2

1
Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt
2
Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract— Two meandered UHF RFID reader antennas are proposed. Both antenna structures
are composed of a single loop on the top of FR4 substrate, which is meandered in the form of a rose
to obtain compact size. The rose antenna is fed directly through microstrip line connecting the
rose with the RF input. Down the microstrip feeding line a finite ground line placed on the bottom
of the substrate. The antenna input impedance is controlled by adjusting the offset length of
the ground line. Both antennas occupy areas of radius 25 mm and 21 mm, respectively compared
to 72.5 mm for the conventional printed loop one. The measured bandwidths of the designed
antennas cover the universal UHF frequency band of 840–960 MHz. Other radiation properties
are found to be acceptable for both proposed antennas. Therefore, the proposed fabricated
antennas are cheap, compact and universal for UHF RFID applications reader worldwide.

1. INTRODUCTION

RFID system has been developed for several years owing to its wide range of possible application
fields. RFID system operating at UHF frequencies has received considerable interests for various
commercial applications, such as supply chain management or inventory control. In this regard, a
great demand of UHF RFID system is expected to replace the current position of barcode system.
Reader antenna is one of the important components in RFID systems, which is used to transmit
or receive signal from a tag. Most RFID systems operate at ISM frequencies, such as 13.56 MHz,
2.45 GHz and 5.8 GHz, some work at UHF frequencies such as 840.5–844.5 and 920.5–924.5 MHz in
China, 920–926 MHz in Australia, 866–869 and 920–925 MHz in Singapore, 952–955 MHz in Japan
and 902–928 MHz in USA, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rica, Costa Rica, Latin America, and so on.
So, the UHF RFID frequency ranges from 840.5 to 955 MHz [1]. Therefore, a universal reader
antenna across the entire UHF RFID band with desired performance would be beneficial for RFID
system implementation and configuration, as well as cost reduction. In order to communicate in
the UHF frequency band the antenna size will be larger relative to the wavelength. In this paper,
two meandered UHF RFID reader antennas are proposed in order to communicate with the tags
working at UHF band where tag orientation is known and fixed and low power consumption is
required in the reader system. Both antenna structures are composed of a single loop on the top
of the substrate, which is meandered to obtain compact size, fed directly through microstrip line
connecting the rose with the RF input. Down the microstrip line, a finite ground line placed on the
bottom of the substrate. The antenna input impedance can be controlled by adjusting the offset
length of the ground line. Both antennas occupy areas of radius 25 mm and 21 mm, respectively
compared to 72.5 mm for the conventional printed loop one or other complicated designs with
circular polarization, which may occupy areas of 155 mm × 230 mm [2] or 250 mm × 250 mm [3].
The measured bandwidths of the designed antennas cover the universal UHF frequency band, which
agree well with the computed results. Other radiation properties are found to be acceptable for
both proposed antennas.

2. ANTENNA DESIGN

The Fourier series analysis for the thin-wire circular loop or its image equivalent half-loop antenna
excited with a transverse electromagnetic (TEM) mode assumed in the aperture of the coaxial line
is used for the prototype circular antenna radius prediction in free space. The antenna has radius
R, resonant wavelength λo , constructed from a perfectly conducting wire of radius ai , ai ¿ R,
βo ai ¿ 1 and βo = 2π/λo . MATLAB code based on Equations (1)–(5) [5], was built to calculate
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Xi’an, China, March 22–26, 2010 871

the input admittance using this theoretical model

à ∞
!,
X
Y = G + jB = I(0)/Vo ) = Io + 2 In Vo (1)
n=1
−jVo bn
In = n = 0, 1, 2, . . . (2)
ξo π an
βo R n2
an = (Kn+1 + Kn−1 ) − Kn (3)
2 βo R
· q ¸ · q ¸
1 ai 2 ai 2 1n h ¡ ¢0.5 io
Kn = B0 2
n − (βo R) H0 2
n − (βo R) + γ + ln 4 n2 − βo2 R2
π R R π
n−1 2β
Z o R
2 X 1 1
− − [Ω2n (x) + jJ2n (x)] dx (4)
π 2m + 1 2
m=0 0
µ · q ¸ ½ · q ¸
1 ai 2 2 ai 2 2
bn = B0 (n + 1) − (βo R) · H0 (n + 1) − (βo R)
ln (ao /ai ) R R
· q ¸¾ · q ¸
ao ai
−H0 (n + 1)2 − (βo R)2 + B0 (n − 1)2 − (βo R)2
R R
½ · q ¸ · q ¸¾¶
ai 2 2 ao 2 2
· H0 (n − 1) − (βo R) − H0 (n − 1) − (βo R) (5)
R R

In Equations (1)–(5), G and B are the input conductance and susceptance respectively, B0 and H0
are the modified Bessel functions of the first and second kinds and order zero, Ω2n is the Lommel-
Weber function of order 2n, J2n is the Bessel function of the first kind and order 2n, Euler’s

14 G 800 R
B
12 700 X

10 600
500
8 400
6
G,B (mS)

300
R,X (Ψ)

4 200
2 100
0
0
-100
-2 -200
-4 -300
-6 -400
0. 2 0.4 0.6 0. 8 1 1.2 1.4 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 7580 85 90 95100105110
βR Radius R (mm)

Figure 1: Input admittance of loop antenna versus Figure 2: Input impedance of loop antenna versus
βR. R at F = 900 MHz.

Figure 3: (a) Conventional printed loop antenna. (b) Rose printed loop antenna. (c) Meandered rose printed
loop antenna.
872 PIERS Proceedings, Xi’an, China, March 22–26, 2010
p
constant γ = 0.57722 and ξo = µo /εo = 120π Ω with µo and εo are free space permeability and
permittivity, respectively. The input admittance of an antenna has R = 40.36 mm, 2ai = 3.25 mm
and outer to inner coaxial line feed radius ratio ao /ai = 2.174 was calculated with the MATLAB
code. The result in Figure 1 agreed well with the results published in [4]. The code was modified to
calculate different radii with different input impedances at the same frequency which is chosen to be
900 MHz as shown in Figure 2, with ao = 3.5 mm and ai = 1.52 mm for coaxial line characteristic
impedance Zc = 50 Ω. The thin-wire circular loop with R = 96.09 mm and input impedance
Z = R + jX = 52.96 − j3.73 Ω (R and X are the input resistance and reactance, respectively) is
transformed to a printed circular loop with width w = 4ai [5]. FR4 material with relative dielectric
constant εr = 4.65 and thickness h = 1.5 mm is used as substrate. Microstrip line on a finite ground
line is used for feeding purpose. The whole structure was optimized using the method of moments
based IE3D Zeland software. Figure 3 shows the proposed RFID reader antennas which uses the
same feeding scheme in which a microstrip feeding line connected directly with the radiating element
on the top, beneath lied a finite ground line. Figure 3(a) shows an optimized Conventional Printed
Loop Antenna with width w = 2.73 mm, ground line with width wg = 1.46w is chosen, Lg = 75 mm
and radius R = 72.5 mm. Figure 3(b) shows the Rose Antenna (RA) in which the radiating loop
element is meandered to a rose figure with L1 = 19.66 mm, L2 = 16.94 mm, R = 25 mm, and
Lg = 27.5 mm. Figure 3(c) shows the Meandered Rose Antenna (MRA) with L1 = 12.09 mm,
R = 21 mm, and Lg = 26.86 mm.
3. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS
The fabricated Rose Antenna (RA) and Meandered Rose Antenna (MRA) are shown in Figures 4
and 5, respectively. At the beginning, we design RA and MRA with radii 29 mm and 25 mm, re-
spectively. Figure 6 shows that the measured antenna return loss departs the interested bandwidth,
again RA and MRA designed with radii 25 mm and 21 mm, respectively with other dimensions as
given in the previous section. The measured impedance bandwidth of the RA at the UHF band
reaches 22.47% (0.78437–0.970 GHz) at resonant frequency of 0.82625 GHz, which is broader than

(a) (b) (a) (b)

Figure 4: RA (a) Bottom view. (b) Top view. Figure 5: MRA (a) Bottom view. (b) Top view.

10
10

0 0

-10
-10
S11 (dB)
S11 (dB)

-20

-20
-30 Measured RA S11
Simulated RA S11 Measured RA S 11
-40 Measured MRA S11 -30 Simulated RA S 11
Simulated MRA S11
Measured MRA S 11
-50
Simulated MRA S 11
-40
0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4
Frequency (GHz) Frequency (GHz )

Figure 6: Reflection coefficient S11 versus frequency Figure 7: Reflection coefficient S11 versus frequency
for both RA and MRA with radii 29 mm and 25 mm, for both RA and MRA with radii 25 mm and 21 mm,
respectively. respectively.
Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Xi’an, China, March 22–26, 2010 873

0 0

-10
-10

S11 (dB)
S 11 (dB)

-20
Lg =27.85 mm
-20 L g =30. 36 mm
Lg =22.85 mm L g =25. 36 mm
-30 Lg =17.85 mm L g =20. 36 mm
Lg =12.85 mm L g =15. 36 mm
-30
Lg =7.85 mm L g =10. 36 mm

0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 0. 81 .0 1.2 1. 4

Frequency (GHz) Frequency (G Hz )

Figure 8: RA offset ground line effect. Figure 9: MRA offset ground line effect.

Figure 10: RA radiation pattern. Figure 11: MRA radiation pattern.

the 5.35% (1.077–1.136 GHz) predicted during simulation at 1.06 GHz and cover the universal UHF
RFID band. For the MRA, the measured bandwidth reaches 25.25% (0.7981 GHz–0.9675 GHz) at
resonant frequency of 0.83625 GHz, which is broader than the 4.47% (1.052–1.1 GHz) predicted
during simulation at 1.074 GHz and cover also the universal UHF RFID band as shown in Figure 7.
The discrepancies are mainly because of the fabrication difficulty in precise alignment between the
finite ground line and the radiated element and the SMA connector soldering before measurement.
Figures 8 and 9 show the effect of ground line on the tuning of the input impedance for both RA
and MRA, respectively. The MRA radiation efficiency was found to be 73.6% with gain of 1.21 dBi
and directivity of 2.54 dBi. For the RA, radiation efficiency was found to be 74.1% with gain of
1.136 dBi and directivity of 2.5527 dBi. RA and MRA radiation patterns are shown in Figures 10
and 11, respectively.
4. CONCLUSIONS
A Rose Antenna (RA) and Meandered Rose Antenna (MRA) for UHF RFID reader are designed
and fabricated. The measured input impedances could be controlled by the ground line length.
The measured bandwidths cover the universal UHF frequency band of 840–960 MHz. Therefore,
the proposed fabricated antennas are simple, cheap, compact and suitable for the universal UHF
RFID applications.
REFERENCES
1. Barthel, H., “Regulatory status for RFID in the UHF Spectrum,” EPC Global, Brussels,
Belgium, March 2009.
874 PIERS Proceedings, Xi’an, China, March 22–26, 2010

2. Xu, Z. and X. Li, “Aperture coupling two-layered dual-band RFID reader antenna design,” Pro-
ceedings of Microwave and Millimeter Wave Technology ICMMT, 1218–1221, Nanjing, China,
April 2008.
3. Chen, Z. N. and H. L. Chung, “A universal UHF RFID reader antenna,” IEEE Transactions
on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vol. 57, No. 5, 1275–1282, 2009.
4. Guangping, Z. and S. S. Glenn, “An accurate theoretical model for the thin-wire circular half-
loop antenna,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 39, No. 8, 1167–1177,
1991.
5. Hejase, H. N., “Analysis of a printed wire loop antenna,” IEEE Transactions on Microwave
Theory and Techniques, Vol. 42, No. 2, 227–233, 1994.