Systematic design and prototyping of a low-cost passive UHF-RFID transponder

This paper presents a methodical design and prototyping of a passive European ultra-high frequency (UHF) band radio frequency identification (RFID) transponder. The transponder has a 70 x 17 x 0.3 mm(3) copper antenna whose design is based on the folded dipole architecture and utilizes techniques such as meandering and end loading to match a Texas Instruments (TI) UHF-RFID chip through a T-match feeding network. The tag's simulated and measured performances indicate good coverage of the entire UHF band with a return loss better than 10 dB. The transponder was then fabricated using inexpensive off-the-shelf materials and its performance was tested. The proposed tag achieved good gain, read range, and cost efficiency when compared with current folded dipole antennas and can be easily adapted for various applications such as supply chain, access or security, and vehicle identification.