RFID for Everyone: Design of an Easily-Accessible, Experimental UHF RFID Platform

This paper presents an expandable wireless sensing platform designed to exhibit similar functionality to high-performing RFID devices such as the Intel WiSP while remaining accessible as a learning tool. Towards this end, the platform is designed around components that are stocked by most component suppliers, and physically large enough to be soldered by hand. With an aim to bring more researchers into the RFID community, the system allows for a user to quickly perform wireless power transfer experiments, design and test low-power embedded firmware, quickly prototype backscatter communication protocols, and design fully-functional battery-free sensors. The platform runs a 16-bit MSP430 microcontroller and receives all power from a 915 MHz CW source. It has a measured sensitivity of -6 dBm where sufficient voltage (1.8 V) is harvested to turn on the MSP430 microcontroller. The reader for this system is a custom design that transmits a CW signal and allows output data to be easily seen with an oscilloscope. To showcase the effectiveness of the system, a battery-free sensor designed by a group of undergraduate students with no prior RFID experience is presented. The sensor is capable of wirelessly telemetering luminance.