Hardware Design and Deployment Issues in UHF RFID Systems: Byung-Jun Jang
Hardware Design and Deployment Issues in UHF RFID Systems: Byung-Jun Jang
UHF RFID radio links using the link budget concept to calculate forward-link and
reverse-link interrogation ranges.
Hardware design considerations at the reader: phase diversity and quadrature signal
combining, phase noise with range correlation effect, and transmitter leakage reduction
methods.
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Radio Frequency Identification Fundamentals and Applications, Design Methods and Solutions
Fig. 1. Comparison of link characteristics between a typical wireless system and an UHF
RFID system
On the other hand, UHF RFID links, as illustrated in Fig. 1(b) are different from typical
wireless links. An RFID system is generally comprises two components: reader and tag. The
reader, sometimes called the interrogator, is made up of a TX/RX module with one or more
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antennas. The tag consists of a microchip for storing data and an antenna to transmit stored
data. Tags are normally categorized into active and passive types by the presence or absence
of an internal power supply. Because the passive tag has no power supply of its own, it
obtains energy from the continuous wave (CW) signal transmitted by a reader. In addition,
the passive tag transmits its data by backscattering the CW signal. In other words, the data
transmission from tags to the reader is done by reflecting the wave energy back to the
reader. Therefore, an RFID link is half duplex: reader to tag and then tag to reader. This
means that RFID links are intrinsically unbalanced. Moreover, the reverse link is highly
correlated with the forward link, because the tag's transmit power is determined by the
reader's transmit power (Yoon & Jang, 2008).
These link characteristics of the UHF RFID system can be easily calculated using the link
budget concept, which is the wireless communication system designer's primary tool for
estimating the cell coverage.
2.1 Forward link budget calculation
In the forward link, the power received by the RFID tag, PRX , can be found by applying the
Friis EM wave propagation equation in free space:
PRX (r ) =
PTX GT GR
4 r
2
(1)
where
: the wavelength in free space
r : the operational distance between an RFID tag and the reader
PTX : the signal power feeding into the reader antenna by the transmitter
GR : the gain of the reader antenna
GT : the gain of the tag antenna
One portion of the power PRX is absorbed by the tag for direct current (DC) power
generation, and the other portion of PRX is backscattered for the reverse link. In order to
deliver enough power to turn the tag's microchip on, the absorption power for DC power
generation must be larger than the minimum operating power required for tag operation,
PTH . For example, the forward link budget which has amplitude shift keying (ASK)
backscatter modulation is given by:
PRX (r ) =
1 m4
PTX GT GR PTH
2
( m + 1) 4 r
2
(2)
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Radio Frequency Identification Fundamentals and Applications, Design Methods and Solutions
30
20
10
-10
FIR
-20
-30
4
5
6
Tag-reader distance [m]
10
Fig. 2. Forward link budget of an UHF RFID system with center frequency of 915MHz,
receive antenna gain of 2.15dBi, of -15dBm, and transmit EIRP of 4W
2.2 Reverse link budget calculation
In the reverse link, the backscattered signal from a tag should be strong enough so that the
reader's demodulation output signal will meet the system's minimum signal-to-noise-ratio
(SNRmin) requirement. This is very similar to typical wireless communication system links.
However, because the CW signal always exists in a reverse-link to turn the tag on, the TX
leakage level plays an important role in determining the reverse-link budget. Fortunately,
the DC offset due to TX leakage is removed from a baseband bandpass filter. Nonetheless,
the phase noise of the TX leakage, NPN, on the receiving bandwidth is unfortunately not
removed by the filter. Therefore, it may be much stronger than the thermal noise, to a degree
that the reverse link budget mainly depends on the phase noise of the TX leakage. On the
other hand, in a typical wireless communication system, the phase noise of the TX leakage
within the receiving bandwidth is normally not a major problem, because duplexing
techniques, such as frequency division duplexing (FDD) and time division duplexing
(TDD), are applied.
Figure 3 shows a link budget example in the stationary reader case according to tag-reader
distance. The reverse-link interrogation range (RIR) is defined as the maximum distance at
which the tags backscattered signal meets the minimum reader sensitivity condition. As
showin in Fig. 3, the forward link is determined by a tag threshold voltage, the reverse link
is mainly determined by the phase noise of TX leakage.
2.3 Interrogation range
The performance of an UHF RFID system is usually characterized by its interrogation range,
which is defined as the maximum distance at which an RFID reader can recognize a tag.
This can be divided into two categories: the FIR and the RIR. Since the actual interrogation
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20
0
FIR
Power (dBm)
-20
P TH
-40
-60
RIR
N+Npn+SNRmin+link margin
-80
Npn
-100
N
-120
10
15
Reader-tag Distance (m)
20
25
Fig. 3. Reverse link budget of an UHF RFID system (N: thermal noise) (Yoon & Jang, 2008)
range is determined by the smaller value of FIR and RIR, both values should be considered
simultaneously when deploying UHF RFID systems. As shown in Fig. 3, FIR has a smaller
value than RIR in the case of a well-designed reader. However, RIR may be much more
significant than the FIR in environments such as warehouses because of interference from
other readers. Also, the interrogation range of a battery-assisted tag is determined by the
RIR only.
Fig. 4. Architecture of an UHF RFID system and block diagram of a reader and a tag
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Radio Frequency Identification Fundamentals and Applications, Design Methods and Solutions
signal feeds into the reader antenna via the circulator and then radiates into the air. The
reader antenna simultaneously receives the backscattered signals from the tag. The antenna
can be configured in two ways: two antennas or one antenna with a circulator. The
circulator is a non-reciprocal three-port device, where the signals travel from the transmitter
port to the antenna port or from the antenna port to the receiver port. In practice, the
circulator cannot entirely isolate the transmitter from the receiver, due to the inherent
leakage between its ports. Generally, TX leakage is between -20 to -50dB (Jang & Yoon,
2008a).
3.1 Phase diversity and optimal I/Q signal combining
As shown in Fig. 4, the same LO provides two identical frequency signals, one for the
transmitter and the other for the receiver. The LO signal for the receiver is further divided
using a power splitter to provide two orthonormal baseband outputs, I and Q signals.
Because the received signal and the LO signal have the same frequency, the absolute phase
of the received signal influences the amplitude of the down-converted signal. Therefore,
some sort of phase diversity using I and Q signals should be provided to demodulate the tag
signal (Jang, 2008).
Figure 5 shows the simulation results of normalized I and Q signal power at the quadrature
receiver for the case of tag moving. For this simulation, the tag located 1 meter below the
reader antenna is assumed to move up to 5m away from the reader. The complex plot forms
a spiral-like shape due to the periodic received signal power variation.
Fig. 5. Received signal variation characteristics of an UHF RFID receiver with respect to the
reader-tag distance
Using the quadrature receiver, the demodulator can choose the higher of the tag signals to
retrieve the tag's data. This is called selection diversity. Now, the reader can select the better
of the quadrature (I and Q) channel outputs and overcome the limitation of a single channel
receiver. Figure 6 shows the performance of selection diversity compared with the I and Q
channel signals with respect to phase value from zero to . In selection diversity, two
extreme instances, i.e., 'minimum' and 'optimum' occur every / 8 meters, as the tag moves
away from the reader antenna. At 900 MHz, these minimum points occur every 4.2cm. For
the optimum instance, the tag signal can be demodulated without loss. However, for the
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minimum instance, the tag signal can be reduced with a 3dB loss in power. In order to
overcome this 3dB loss of selection diversity, various I/Q combining techniques can be
used. For example, the power combining technique can be used in the ASK case. On the
other hand, signal combining with phase shift keying (PSK) is not as easy as ASK. Recently,
arctangent combining and principal component combining (PCC) have been suggested
(Jang, 2008).
10
Single channel(I) only
Single channel(Q) only
Selection combining
5
optimum point
0
-5
minimum point
-10
-15
-20
-25
-30
null point
0.5
1.5
phase [rad]
2.5
S ( t ) ( f ) = SLO ( t ) ( f ) 4 sin 2 4
c
(3)
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Radio Frequency Identification Fundamentals and Applications, Design Methods and Solutions
of r f c / c will be on the order of 10-3. So the range correlation effect will dramatically reduce
the PSD of the LO phase noise.
Figure 7 shows an example of a typical PSD of the LO itself and the phase noise reduction
effects due to the range correlation with a round-trip delay of 1m. The typical PSD of the LO
is selected considering state-of-the-art UHF RFID LO performance. The effect of the range
correlation on the phase noise for different offset frequencies was estimated by (3). For
example, at an offset frequency of 10Hz, the phase noise is reduced by 130dB.
-60
-80
-100
-120
typical LO(LO(t))
-140
-160
-180
1
10
10
10
10
Offset Frequency ( fc) [Hz]
10
10
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10
FM0-BPSK(/8)
-1
10
-2
10
FM0-BPSK(/4)
-3
10
Analysis,AWGN
Analysis, LO(t),
Analysis, (t)
Simulation,AWGN
Simulation,LO(t),
-4
10
Simulation,(t)
-2
8
10
SNR [dB]
12
14
16
18
20
Fig. 8. SER performance of FM0-BPSK signal as a function of phase noise and range
correlation effect (Jang & Yoon, 2008b)
(LNA) of the receiver can be saturated by this strong TX leakage, decreasing the dynamic
range of LNA. A DC offset problem is also caused by self mixing at the mixer in the reader
receiver.
To alleviate the TX leakage problem, the strong TX signal should be separated from the RX
signal as much as is possible to achieve higher performance from the RFID reader. The
simplest solution is to separate the TX and RX antennas. However, the size and cost of the
reader hardware will increase. A circulator of ferrite material or an active CMOS circulator
may lighten this burden, but the cost is still high, and isolation of these circulators is
insufficient to meet some required criteria. A directional coupler may, therefore, be a better
choice given its simplicity and low cost (Kim et al., 2006).
4. Deployment Issues
In supply-chain applications, tens or hundreds of RFID readers will be in operation within
close range of each other, which may cause serious interference problems.
There are three types of UHF RFID interference: multiple-tag-to-reader interference (tag
collision), multiple-reader-to-tag interference (tag interference), and reader-to-reader
interference (reader interference or frequency interference) as shown in Fig. 9.
Multiple-tag-to-reader interference arises when multiple tags are simultaneously energized
by a reader and reflect their respective signals back to the reader. Due to a mixture of
scattered waves, the reader cannot differentiate individual IDs from the tags: therefore, anticollision mechanisms such as those known as binary-tree and ALOHA are needed to resolve
multiple-tag-to-reader interference (Dubkin, 2008), (EPCglobal, 2004). Multiple reader-to-tag
interference happens when a tag is located at the intersection of two or more reader
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Radio Frequency Identification Fundamentals and Applications, Design Methods and Solutions
interrogation ranges and the readers attempt to communicate with the tag simultaneously.
This can cause a tag to behave and communicate in undesirable ways. Multiple reader-totag interference can be solved simply by separating reader intterrogation ranges.
5. Conclusion
In this chapter, we discuss hardware design and deployment issues in current passive UHF
band RFID systems. Using the link budget concept, the simple method to calculate forward-
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11
and reverse-link interrogation range is shown. Then, we consider the hardware issues on an
RFID reader: phase diversity and signal combining techniques, phase noise with range
correlation effect, and TX leakage reduction methods. Finally, three interference problems
with an emphasis on reader-to-reader interference encountered in the deployment of RFID
systems are presented.
6. References
Birari, S. M. & Iyer, S. (2005). Mitigating the Reader Collision Problem in RFID, Proceedings of
the 13th IEEE International Conference on Networks, 16-18 Nov. 2005
Droitcour, A. D.; Lubecke, O. B., Lubecke, V. M., Lin, J. & Kovacs, G. T. A. (2004). Range
correlation and I/Q performance benefits in single-chip silicon doppler radars for
noncontact cardiopulmonary monitoring, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., Vol.
52, No. 3, pp.838-848, Mar. 2004, ISSN 0018-9480
Dubkin, D. M. (2008). The RF in RFID: passive UHF RFID in practice, Elsevier ISBN 978-07506-8209-1
EPCgloabl (2004). EPC radio-frequency identity protocols class-1 generation-2 UHF RFID protocol
for communications at 860MHz-960MHz version 1.0.9, EPCglobal Standard
Specification, 2004.
Finkenzeller, K. (2003). RFID Handbook: Fundamentals and applications in contactless smart cards
and identification, John Wiley, ISBN 0-470-84402-7, Chichester
Jang, B. -J. (2008). Phase diversity and optimal I/Q signal combining methods on an UHF
RFID reader's receiver, Microwave Journal(Web Exclusive), Vol. 51, No. 4, April. 2008
Jang, B. -J. & Yoon, H. (2008a). Examine the effects of phase noise on RFID range, Microwave
and RF, July. 2008, pp. 78-77, ISSN 0745-2993
Jang, B. -J. & Yoon, H. (2008b). Range correlation effect on the phase noise of an UHF RFID
reader, IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components letters, Vol.18, No. 12, Dec. 2008,
pp. 827-829, ISSN 1531-1309
Karthasu, U. & Fischer, M. (2003). Fully integrated passive UHF RFID transponder IC with
16.7-uW minimum RF input power, IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 38, No. 10,
pp.1602-1608, Oct. 2003, ISSN 0018-9200
Kim, D. Y.; Yoon, H., Jang, B. -J., & Yook, J. G. (2008). Interference Analysis of UHF
RFID Systems, Progress In Electromagnetics Research B, vol. 4, pp. 115-126, ISSN 19376472
Kim, D. Y.; Yoon, H., Jang, B. -J., & Yook, J. G. (2009). Effects of Reader-to-Reader
Interference on the UHF RFID Interrogation Range, IEEE Trans. Industrial
Electronics, Vol. 56, No. 7, Mar. 2004, pp.2337-2346, ISSN 0278-0046
Kim, W. -K.; Lee, M. -Q., Kim, J. -H. Lim, H. -S., Yu, J. -W., Jang, B. -J. & Park, J. -S. (2006). A
passive circulator with high isolation using a directional coupler for RFID, IEEE
Microwave Symposium Digest, pp.1177-1180, ISSN 0149-645X, June. 2006
Leong, K. S.; Ng, M. L. & Cole, P. H. (2006). Positioning Analysis of Multiple Antennas in a
Dense RFID Reader Environment, Proceedings of. International Symposium on
Applications and the Internet Workshops, pp. 23-27, ISBN 0-7695-2510-5, Jan. 2006
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Radio Frequency Identification Fundamentals and Applications, Design Methods and Solutions
Nikitin, P. V. & Rao, K. V. S. (2008). Antennas and propagation in UHF RFID systems,
Proceedings of 2008 IEEE International Conference of RFID, pp. 277-288, ISBN 978-14244-1711-7, Apr. 2008
Yoon, H. & Jang, B. -J. (2008). Link budget calculation for UHF RFID systems, Microwave
Journal, Vol. 51, No. 12, Dec. 2008, pp. 78-77, ISSN 0192-6225
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ISBN 978-953-7619-72-5
Hard cover, 324 pages
Publisher InTech
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Byung-Jun Jang (2010). Hardware Design and Deployment Issues in UHF RFID Systems, Radio Frequency
Identification Fundamentals and Applications Design Methods and Solutions, Cristina Turcu (Ed.), ISBN: 978953-7619-72-5, InTech, Available from: http://www.intechopen.com/books/radio-frequency-identificationfundamentals-and-applications-design-methods-and-solutions/hardware-design-and-deployment-issues-inuhf-rfid-systems
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