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RFID Sensor Tags: Hardware, Implementation, and Demonstrations
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RFID Sensor Tags: Hardware, Implementation, and Demonstrations

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Sensor Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 September 2019) | Viewed by 37939

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Toni Bjorninen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Academy of Finland Research Fellow, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland
Interests: antennas; RF electronics; energy harvesting; wireless health; body-area networks; biotelemetry; wearable and implantable systems
Dr. Johanna Virkki

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Academy of Finland Research Fellow, Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland
Interests: additive manufacturing methods and materials; textile-integrated electronics; reliability

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology enables contactless identification of assets labelled with low-cost RFID tags comprising at minimum a passive scatter in chipless tags or an antenna and an integrated circuit (IC) in IC-based tags. Recently, RFID tags have gained a great deal of interest as platforms for energy-efficient wireless sensors thanks to their battery-free operation and energy efficient tag-to-reader communication by the means of modulated scattering. Until now, researchers have identified an array of prominent applications for this technology, including the internet of things requiring cost-effective sensors, wireless health enabled by wearable and implantable sensors, and harsh industrial environments monitored by simple and robust sensors. However, there are still several open problems related to RFID sensor tags and their wireless readout. Some of the major challenges include structural integration and manufacturing, achieving referenced and site-independent sensor readout, as well as development of antennas and circuits for energy harvesting.

To progress the state-of-the-art in the field, we solicit original research contributions focused on hardware aspects in RFID sensor tags and their readout methods, including (but not limited to) sensors and actuators, antennas, circuits and systems, materials and manufacturing techniques, and experimental demonstrations.

Dr. Toni Bjorninen
Dr. Johanna Virkki
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • NF RFID
  • Passive UHF RFID
  • Chipless RFID
  • Additive manufacturing
  • Wireless Sensors
  • Antennas
  • Energy harvesting
  • Wireless power transfer

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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22 pages, 5193 KiB  
Article
Flexible UHF RFID Tag for Blood Tubes Monitoring
by Mohamed El Khamlichi, Alejandro Alvarez Melcon, Otman El Mrabet, Mohammed Ali Ennasar and Juan Hinojosa
Sensors 2019, 19(22), 4903; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19224903 - 09 Nov 2019
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 4631
Abstract
Low-cost and flexible radio frequency identification (RFID) tag for automatic identification, tracking, and monitoring of blood products is in great demand by the healthcare industry. A robust performance to meet security and traceability requirements in the different blood sample collection and analysis centers [...] Read more.
Low-cost and flexible radio frequency identification (RFID) tag for automatic identification, tracking, and monitoring of blood products is in great demand by the healthcare industry. A robust performance to meet security and traceability requirements in the different blood sample collection and analysis centers is also required. In this paper, a novel low-cost and flexible passive RFID tag is presented for blood sample collection tubes. The tag antenna is based on two compact symmetrical capacitive structures and works at the ultra-high frequency (UHF) European band (865 MHz–868 MHz). The tag antenna is designed considering the whole dielectric parameters such as the blood, substrate and tube. In this way, it operates efficiently in the presence of blood, which has high dielectric permittivity and loss. Measurement results of the proposed tag have confirmed simulation results. The measured performance of the tag shows good matching in the desired frequency band, leading to reading ranges up to 2.2 m, which is 4.4 times higher than typical commercial tags. The potential of this tag as a sensor to monitor the amount of blood contained in clinic tubes is also demonstrated. It is expected that the proposed tag can be useful and effective in future RFID systems to introduce security and traceability in different blood sample collection and analysis centers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID Sensor Tags: Hardware, Implementation, and Demonstrations)
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8 pages, 1031 KiB  
Article
Autonomous RFID Sensor Node Using a Single ISM Band for Both Wireless Power Transfer and Data Communication
by Abderrahim Okba, Dominique Henry, Alexandru Takacs and Hervé Aubert
Sensors 2019, 19(15), 3330; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19153330 - 29 Jul 2019
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3237
Abstract
This paper addresses the implementation of autonomous radiofrequency identification sensor nodes based on wireless power transfer. For size reduction, a switching method is proposed in order to use the same frequency band for both supplying power to the nodes and wirelessly transmitting the [...] Read more.
This paper addresses the implementation of autonomous radiofrequency identification sensor nodes based on wireless power transfer. For size reduction, a switching method is proposed in order to use the same frequency band for both supplying power to the nodes and wirelessly transmitting the nodes’ data. A rectenna harvests the electromagnetic energy delivered by the dedicated radiofrequency source for charging a few-mF supercapacitor. For supercapacitors of 7 mF, it is shown that the proposed autonomous sensor nodes were able to wirelessly communicate with the reader at 868 MHz for 10 min without interruption for a tag-to-reader separation distance of 1 meter. This result was obtained from effective radiated powers of 2 W during the supercapacitor charging and of 100 mW during the wireless data communication. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID Sensor Tags: Hardware, Implementation, and Demonstrations)
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11 pages, 9708 KiB  
Article
Remote Control System for Battery-Assisted Devices with 16 nW Standby Consumption
by Manuel Ferdik, Georg Saxl, Erwin Jesacher and Thomas Ussmueller
Sensors 2019, 19(4), 975; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19040975 - 25 Feb 2019
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3971
Abstract
One of the biggest impacts of the vision ‘Internet of Things’ is the massive number of connected devices, where billions of nodes will exchange data, information and commands. While wireless systems offer advantages such as increased flexibility, they also introduce one major challenge: [...] Read more.
One of the biggest impacts of the vision ‘Internet of Things’ is the massive number of connected devices, where billions of nodes will exchange data, information and commands. While wireless systems offer advantages such as increased flexibility, they also introduce one major challenge: how to power each individual node. In many cases, there is no way around the use of batteries. To minimize the environmental impact, increasing the battery’s longevity is the most important factor. This paper introduces a wireless battery-assisted node that has a drastically reduced energy consumption in the standby mode. The state (on/off) will be changed by harvesting a radiofrequency signal. A latching switch connects or disconnects the load—for example, a microcontroller—and the battery. The switch is connected to a charge pump which converts an AC (alternating current) signal into a usable DC (direct current) control signal. An antenna is mounted to the charge pump via a matching network. An electromagnetic wave is emitted by a remote control switch that switches the system on and off. The used frequency is 868 MHz and therefore in the UHF RFID (ultra high frequency radio frequency identification) band. The measurement results show that the wireless node consumes less than 16 nW in the standby mode. The remote controlling is possible from a distance of more than 12 m . The presented system can be integrated in further work on a UHF RFID tag. Thus, the existing protocol standard can be used to identify the object to be switched. By custom commands, the switching request can be transmitted from the remote control (UHF RFID reader) to the switching node. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID Sensor Tags: Hardware, Implementation, and Demonstrations)
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21 pages, 7100 KiB  
Article
Passive Harmonic RFID System for Buried Assets Localization
by Abanob Abdelnour, Antonio Lazaro, Ramón Villarino, Darine Kaddour, Smail Tedjini and David Girbau
Sensors 2018, 18(11), 3635; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18113635 - 26 Oct 2018
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 6031
Abstract
A passive harmonic tag for buried assets localization is presented for utility localization. The tag design is based on a dual-polarized patch antenna at Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band. One of its feeders is connected to a frequency doubler based on a Schottky [...] Read more.
A passive harmonic tag for buried assets localization is presented for utility localization. The tag design is based on a dual-polarized patch antenna at Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band. One of its feeders is connected to a frequency doubler based on a Schottky diode that generates the second harmonic, which is transmitted using a linear-polarized patch tuned at this frequency. The power received at the other feeder of the dual-polarized antenna is harvested by an RF to DC converter based on a five-stage voltage multiplier whose energy is used to bias a low-power quartz oscillator that modulates the output of the doubler. The different parts of the system are presented, and the theoretical read range is estimated as a function of the soil composition and the water content. A low-cost reader based on a software defined radio is also presented. Finally, experiments with a prototype of the tag are performed for different soil conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID Sensor Tags: Hardware, Implementation, and Demonstrations)
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Review

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44 pages, 10613 KiB  
Review
Factors Affecting the Synthesis of Autonomous Sensors with RFID Interface
by Mariusz Węglarski and Piotr Jankowski-Mihułowicz
Sensors 2019, 19(20), 4392; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19204392 - 11 Oct 2019
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 4782
Abstract
A general view on the problem of designing atypical battery-free, autonomous semi-passive RFID transponders-sensors (autonomous sensors with RFID interfaces) is presented in this review. Although RFID devices can be created in any of the electronic technologies, the design stage must be repeated each [...] Read more.
A general view on the problem of designing atypical battery-free, autonomous semi-passive RFID transponders-sensors (autonomous sensors with RFID interfaces) is presented in this review. Although RFID devices can be created in any of the electronic technologies, the design stage must be repeated each time when the manufacturing processes are changed, and their specific conditions have to be taken into consideration when modeling new solutions. Aspects related to the factors affecting the synthesis of semi-passive RFID transponder components on the basis of which the idea of the autonomous RFID sensor was developed are reflected in the paper. Besides their general characteristics, the operation conditions of modern RFID systems and achievements in autonomous RFID sensor technology are revealed in subsequent sections—they include such issues as technological aspects of the synthesis process, designing antennas for RFID transponders, determining RFID chip and antenna parameters, creating the interrogation zone IZ, etc. It should be pointed that the universal construction of an autonomous RFID sensor, which could be use in any application of the automatic object identification system, cannot be developed according to the current state of the art. Moreover, a trial and error method is the most commonly used in the today’s process of designing new solutions, and the basic parameters are estimated on the basis of the tests and the research team experience. Therefore, it is necessary to look for new inventions and methods in order to improve implementations of RFID systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID Sensor Tags: Hardware, Implementation, and Demonstrations)
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26 pages, 4642 KiB  
Review
A Survey of NFC Sensors Based on Energy Harvesting for IoT Applications
by Antonio Lazaro, Ramon Villarino and David Girbau
Sensors 2018, 18(11), 3746; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18113746 - 02 Nov 2018
Cited by 90 | Viewed by 14508
Abstract
In this article, an overview of recent advances in the field of battery-less near-field communication (NFC) sensors is provided, along with a brief comparison of other short-range radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies. After reviewing power transfer using NFC, recommendations are made for the practical [...] Read more.
In this article, an overview of recent advances in the field of battery-less near-field communication (NFC) sensors is provided, along with a brief comparison of other short-range radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies. After reviewing power transfer using NFC, recommendations are made for the practical design of NFC-based tags and NFC readers. A list of commercial NFC integrated circuits with energy-harvesting capabilities is also provided. Finally, a survey of the state of the art in NFC-based sensors is presented, which demonstrates that a wide range of sensors (both chemical and physical) can be used with this technology. Particular interest arose in wearable sensors and cold-chain traceability applications. The availability of low-cost devices and the incorporation of NFC readers into most current mobile phones make NFC technology key to the development of green Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID Sensor Tags: Hardware, Implementation, and Demonstrations)
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