Impact of Dielectric Substrates on Chipless RFID Tag Performance

Abstract

This research work quantifies the spectral signature’s Quality Factor (QF) and resonating frequencies of a generalised chipless RFID tag over a wide range of dielectric substrates. The tag’s performance is assessed in three configurations. First, a hexagonal shape tag’s Radar Cross Section (RCS) was studied over different dielectric substrates. The various dielectric substrates effects were investigated over the maximum read rang, resonant frequencies and QF. In the second evaluation, the physical geometry of the tag was adjusted to achieve the spectral signatures in 2 to 7 GHz frequency band with high QF. In step three, the optimized tag geometry was manufactured on Fr4, Roger Duroid 5880 and poly(ethylene naphthalate) (PEN) substrates. Denford milling machine for PCB engraving and inkjet printing for silver nanoparticles deposition were used for tags manufacturing. During tag manufacturing, copper and silver were used as conducting materials for RCS backscattering. The tag RCS response was measured by vector network analyzer with bi-static antenna setup. The analysis of different dielectric substrate provides a pathway of designing a novel substrate by using nanomaterials.

Keywords: Chipless RFID tags, Dielectric materials and polymers, Inkjet printing, nanomaterials, RCS