RFID testbed measures multiple tags at once and rapidly assesses new antenna designs
Researchers have designed a system capable of simultaneously measuring hundreds of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and rapidly testing new RFID tag prototypes.
“This testbed allows us to measure the signal strength of tags hidden behind other tags and to rapidly test unique antenna configurations and multiple antennas without actually constructing new tags for each experiment,” said Gregory Durgin, an assistant professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
The research, funded by the National Science Foundation and conducted with former graduate student Anil Rohatgi and current graduate student Joshua Griffin, was presented in April at the IEEE International Conference on RFID.
RFID tags are used for applications that include inventory management, package tracking, toll collection, passport identification and airport luggage security. Passive tags include an integrated circuit for storing and processing information, and an antenna that responds to radio waves transmitted from an RFID reader. The tag absorbs some of the radio frequency energy from the reader signal and reflects it back as a return signal delivering information from the tag’s memory, a technique called backscatter.
(Source: Georgia Institue of Technology)
07 / 05 / 2008
