Zeroth Order Resonator (ZOR) Based RFID Antenna Design

Abstract

Meander-line and multi-layer antennas have been used extensively to design compact UHF radio frequency identification (RFID) tags; however the overall size reduction of meander-line antennas is limited by the amount of parasitic inductance that can be introduced by each meander-line segment, and multi-layer antennas can be too costly. In this study, a new compact antenna topology for passive UHF RFID tags based on zeroth order resonant (ZOR) design techniques is presented. The antenna consists of lossy coplanar conductors and either inter-connected inter-digital capacitor (IDC) or shunt inductor unit-cells with a ZOR frequency near the operating frequency of the antenna. Setting the ZOR frequency near the operating frequency is a key component in the design process because the unit-cells chosen for the design are inductive at the operating frequency. This makes the unit-cells very useful for antenna miniaturization. These new designs in this work have several benefits: the coplanar layout can be printed on a single layer, matching inductive loops that reduce antenna efficiency are not required and ZOR analysis can be used for the design. Finally, for validation, prototype antennas are designed, fabricated and tested.