IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO.

6, JUNE 2019 4247

Communication
Compact Planar Inverted-S Antenna With Embedded Tuning Arm for
On-Metal UHF RFID Tag Design
Wai-Hau Ng , Eng-Hock Lim , Fwee-Leong Bong , and Boon-Kuan Chung

Abstract— A planar inverted-S antenna (PISA) is proposed for A new type of tag antenna, called a folded patch, has been recently
designing a compact ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radio frequency proposed for designing a number of low-cost and small-sized tag
identification (RFID) tag for on-metal applications. For the first time,
antennas [5], [6]. They are semiflexible as the antenna structures
a U-shaped arm is embedded into the middle layer of the tag structure
for effectively miniaturizing the footprint. Here, a serpentine patch is are designed on a flexible thin film, which is then folded around
tactfully placed on top of the U-shaped arm to achieve a higher level of a soft foam. However, they required the use of meandered slot-
miniaturization. A compact UHF tag (25 mm × 25 mm × 3.2 mm), with a line [5] or multiple slots [6] for reducing the tag size. Incorporating a
good power transmission coefficient of 99.7% and a long read distance of meandered slotline or multiple slots into the tag design significantly
greater than 11 m, has been successfully demonstrated. It is also shown
that our tag size can be further reduced to 15 mm × 15 mm × 3.2 mm decreases the resistance of the folded-patch antenna, causing them
by simply adjusting the geometrical parameters, without sacrificing the to have poor impedance matching (power transmission coefficient
power transmission coefficient much. With reference to a 4 W EIRP <0.7) due to the lack of resistance to conjugate match with the chip
reader output power, the proposed tag antenna can be read from 11.9 m. impedance.
For the tag with a footprint of 15 mm×15 mm, the read range is estimated
to be at least 7 m.
Meandering long stripline is an effective method for tag minia-
turization. Such a technique has been applied for designing var-
Index Terms— Folded patch, metal-mountable tag antenna, planar ious antennas for GPS satellite communications [7] and wireless
inverted-S antenna (PISA), ultrahigh frequency (UHF) tag antenna.
biotelemetry [8]. In [9], a stripline is carefully meandered into
I. I NTRODUCTION S-shape for designing an RFID tag antenna. Although the tag size is
Thanks to its abilities to store more information, to transmit at a small (20 mm × 33.5 mm × 2 mm), it is only readable from 1.6 m.
faster rate, and to reach a longer read distance than the conventional Moreover, the tag design is complicated as the stripline has to be
barcode system, the ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radio frequency properly meandered and positioned so that the tag performances can
identification (RFID) tagging technology has gained popularity in be preserved. The same technique is again applied in [10], where
many commercial applications in recent years. For the past two a long patch is meandered into multiple half-wavelength radiating
decades, researchers have been finding new ways to enhance the elements for improving the antenna gain and the tag read range.
versatility and capability of the UHF RFID systems. Despite its many However, the tag dimension is too large to be practical. In this
advantages, the UHF tag antenna has some technical limitations. The communication, different from the tags in [9] and [10], a planar
conventional dipole tag antenna [1] can become malfunction when it inverted-S antenna (PISA), which is embedded with a U-shaped
is placed in close proximity to metallic objects. This is because its arm, is proposed for designing a small-sized metal-mountable tag
image current is 180° out-of-phase, causing the radiated electric field to achieve long read range in the UHF RFID band. By embedding
to deteriorate. the U-shaped arm beneath a serpentine patch tactfully, our proposed
To achieve small tag size and far read range, different planar tag antenna can be scaled down significantly, and it is able to
inverted-F antennas (PIFA), which have an insulating ground to maintain good power transmission coefficient at the same time. The
minimize the backing metal effect have been explored for designing configuration and the design analysis of the proposed tag antenna are
metal-mountable tag antennas. In [2] and [3], a parasitic element described in Section II. The read performances of the proposed tag
is inserted in between the top radiating patch and the ground for antenna are discussed in Section III. A table is prepared for comparing
achieving broadband and impedance matching. A similar approach the proposed tag with other metal tags in Section III as well.
was also applied in [4], where a parasitic element was loaded on the
II. C ONFIGURATION AND D ESIGN A NALYSIS
top of a radiating patch and a high-dielectric substrate (hydrocarbon
ceramic laminate) was utilized for achieving good power transmission Fig. 1 shows the configuration of the proposed tag antenna. It has
and miniaturization. Although the PIFAs are useful for designing a compact footprint of 25 mm × 25 mm × 3.2 mm (L 1 × L 1 ×
metal-mountable tags, they usually require the use of metal vias. 2h 1 ) comprising three conductor layers and two foam substrates.
This can not only complicate the design processes but also increase The top conducting layer, as illustrated in Fig. 1(a), contains a
the manufacturing costs during mass production. serpentine patch, forming a PISA. The microchip used in this
design is Monza R6, which has a read sensitivity of −20 dBm
Manuscript received October 16, 2018; revised March 21, 2019; accepted and a write sensitivity of −16.7 dBm in the frequency range of
April 1, 2019. Date of publication April 18, 2019; date of current version 860–960 MHz [11]. With reference to Fig. 1(a), it can be seen that
May 31, 2019. This work was supported by the Targeted CREST Fund through
the Collaborative Research in Engineering, Science and Technology, Malaysia, the microchip is bonded at a distance of l1 = 7.75 mm from the
under Grant T07C2-15. (Corresponding author: Eng-Hock Lim.) left edge of the bottom arm, which is connected to the bottom-
The authors are with the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Depart- most ground plane through a shorting wall (indicated as shorting
ment, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kajang 43000, Malaysia (e-mail: wall A) that is etched with a capacitive slot (sg = 0.2 mm) at the
[email protected]; [email protected]).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are
center. The slot is to reduce the reactance of the antenna. Here,
available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. it should be pointed out that a 50  discrete port must be first
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2019.2911191 connected in between the two antenna terminals [chip location as
0018-926X © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
4248 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 6, JUNE 2019

Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit of the proposed tag antenna. (Ra = 44.776 k,
L a = 40.615 nH, Ca = 0.566 pF, R1 = 0.072 , L 1 = 14.695 nH,
Csg = 0.133 pF, L s = 2.489 nH, Rs = 0.019 , and C g = 0.176 pF.)

of tan δ = 0.003. The wrapping procedure is now described. First

of all, an adhesive tape is applied on the reverse side of the top
conducting layer and ground 1 as well as both sides of the middle
conducting layer and the top surface of ground 2. Next, the top
layer which accommodates the serpentine patch is stuck on one
side of a square PP-4 soft foam block (L 1 × L 1 , h 1 = 1.6 mm,
εr = 1.06, and tan δ = 0.0001) [13], and the U-shaped arm is
folded beneath the serpentine patch with the reverse side of the
U-shaped arm stuck on the other side of the foam. The arm, which
is now facing downward, is then stuck on the top surface of a
second square PP-4 soft foam. It should be mentioned that ground 2
is facing downward. After that, the shorting wall A is wrapped
around the edges of the two foams, and ground 1 is adhered to
the bottom surface of the second foam. Finally, by aligning the
inductive stub to the edge of the second foam, ground 2 is adhered to
ground 1 to complete the electrical connection. Fig. 1(d) depicts the
coordinate convention for measuring the proposed tag antenna. From
the microchip’s perspective, the proposed structure is unbalanced. The
unbalanced connection of the microchip causes the polarization of the
tag antenna to have slightly tilted. To make the measurement process
easier, the prototype is inclined at an angle of φ = 30° when it is
Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed tag antenna. (a) Overview. attached to the center of a 20 cm×20 cm metal plate. Such convention
(b) Embedded U-shaped arm. (c) Naked inlay. (d) Prototype of the proposed
tag antenna attached to the center of a 20 cm × 20 cm metal plate. will be used by all the subsequent simulations, measurements, and
discussions.
TABLE I The equivalent circuit of the proposed tag antenna is given in
O PTIMIZED D ESIGN PARAMETERS OF THE P ROPOSED TAG A NTENNA Fig. 2. The serpentine patch radiator is represented by parallel
resistance (Ra ), inductance (L a ), and capacitance (Ca ). The coupling
between the serpentine patch and the ground can be considered as a
parallel plate capacitor with Ca = εr εo A e /2h 1 [14], where εr = 1.06
and h 1 = 1.6 mm are the dielectric constant and the thickness of
the soft foam (PP-4), respectively, εo = 8.854 × 10−12 F/m is the
vacuum permittivity, and A e = w3 (L 1 − l1 − g) + w4 (w1 + w2 +
s1 ) + w5 s2 = 0.242 × 10−3 m2 is the effective surface area of
the serpentine patch. The inductance [15] of the serpentine patch
can be estimated using L a = L a1 + L a2 + L a3 , where L a1 =
shown in Fig. 1(a)] in CST simulation. Subsequently, the 3-D antenna 2μo h 1 L 1 [(1/w1 ) + (1/w2 )], L a2 = 2μo h 1 [(s1 /w4 ) + (s2 /w5 )],
model is connected to an external port where its impedance is set and L a3 = (2μo h 1 /w3 )(L 1 − l1 − g). μo = 4π × 10−7 H/m
to be the chip impedance at the desired operating frequency. When is the permeability of free space. The Ra value is curve fitted
the simulation is performed, the impedance of the discrete port using the macromodel provided in [16]. The shorting wall B (R1w ,
(50 ) is normalized to that of the external port (chip impedance) L 1w ), U-shaped arm (R1u , L 1u ), and inductive stub (R1s , L 1s )
using the software postprocessing feature. To increase the electrical are modeled as a resistance (R1 ) and an inductance (L 1 ) con-
length without increasing the footprint of the radiator, the serpentine nected in series, where R1 = R1w (0.003 ) + R1u (0.063 ) +
patch is connected to the U-shaped arm through a shorting wall R1s (0.006 ) and L 1 = L 1w (0.375 nH)+ L 1u (13.935 nH) +
(indicated as shorting wall B), as shown in Fig. 1(a). The U-shaped L 1s (0.385 nH). The values of the resistances [17] can be calculated
arm in Fig. 1(b) provides multiple design parameters that are useful using R = [ρl/(wt)] × [K c /(1 − e−x )], where ρ = 1.72 ×
for tuning the tag’s resonant frequency down to the UHF RFID 10−8 ·m, l, w, and t = 9×10−6 m are the resistivity, length, width,
band quickly and efficiently. It is then connected to the ground on and thickness of copper, respectively. The current crowding fac-
the bottom layer through an inductive stub. The optimized design tor, K c , and the x values can be computed using the formula in [17].
parameters of the proposed tag antenna are listed in Table I. Fig. 1(c) The inductance values can be calculated using L = 2l{ln[2l/(w +
shows the fabricated naked inlay. The conducting layers (top layer, t)] + 0.50049 + [(w + t)/3l]} [18]. It should be mentioned that
middle layer, and grounds) are laminated on one side of a flexible L is in nanohenry (nH) and l, w, and t are in centimeters (cm).
single-sided polyimide film [12], which has a thickness of The patch with a dimension of (l1 × w3 ) can be seen as a
h 2 = 0.05 mm, dielectric constant of εr = 3.3, and loss tangent resistance (Rs ) and an inductance (L s ) connected in series.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 6, JUNE 2019 4249

Fig. 4. Surface current distributions on the proposed tag antenna at the

simulated resonant frequency. (a) Top layer. (b) Middle layer.

TABLE II
T UNING S ENSITIVITIES OF THE D ESIGN PARAMETERS

Fig. 3. (a) Input impedance of the proposed tag antenna. (b) Power
transmission coefficient and radiation efficiency of the proposed tag antenna.

Similarly, the Rs and L s values can be calculated using the afore- that the antenna impedance is almost conjugate matched with the
mentioned R and L formulas. The capacitive slot (sg) of the chip impedance and maximum power transfer is achievable at this
shorting wall A can be viewed as a capacitor (Csg ), which can particular resonant frequency. A radiation efficiency of 40% is also
be approximated using Csg = εr εo sw1 {ln[0.25 + (2h 1 /sg)2 ] + observed at 926 MHz. The radiation efficiency is low because the
[(sg/2h 1 )tan−1 (4h 1 /sg)]}/(2π) [19]. Likewise, the capacitance (C g ) proposed tag antenna is electrically small [2]. A large tag (>50 mm)
of the narrow gap (g) can also be computed using the same equation has no commercial value in practice.
by substituting sw1 with w3 and sg with g. The input impedance of The surface current distributions on the proposed tag antenna,
the equivalent circuit model in Fig. 2 is derived, and it is provided which is mounted on the middle of a 20 cm × 20 cm metal plate at
in (1)–(4). Besides using the equations for computing the input the simulated resonant frequency, are illustrated in Fig. 4. Currents
impedance of the equivalent circuit model, the equations can also are guided along the serpentine patch and the U-shaped arm, as can
be used for calculating the required antenna impedance if a different be seen from Fig. 4(a) and (b). High current densities are found
RFID chip is used in the design. This can be easily performed around the upper part of the serpentine patch and the U-shaped
by first modifying the lumped element values, and subsequently, arm. On the other hand, low current densities are found around the
the antenna design dimensions are properly adjusted so that the lower part of the serpentine patch. The current densities of the upper
antenna impedance is conjugately matched with the chip impedance. part of the serpentine patch are higher than those of the lower part
Also, with (1)–(4), the operating frequency of the proposed tag because of the existence of the U-shaped arm beneath the upper part.
antenna can be quickly tuned. Currents on the U-shaped arm have induced currents on the upper
Z Cg (Z 1 + Z 2 ) part of the serpentine patch, causing the current density to increase
Z in = (1) in this patch region. Table II shows the tuning sensitivities of the
Z Cg + Z 1 + Z 2
design parameters, which can be used for tuning the input impedance
where and the resonant frequency of the proposed tag antenna. The tuning
j ςRa L a sensitivity for each of the design parameters is associated with the
Z1 = (2)
Ra − ς2 Ra L a Ca + j ςL a surface current density on the tag antenna, as shown in Fig. 4. It is
ςCsg (R1 + Rs ) + j [ς2 Csg (L 1 + L s ) − 1] observed that w1 , w2 , w4 , w6 , w7 , w8 , l2 , and l3 are useful for
Z2 = (3) quickly tuning (coarse tuning) the tag’s resonant frequency down to
ςCsg
the UHF RFID band in the early stage of the design, whereas w3 , w5 ,
1
Z Cg = . (4) sw1 , sw2 , l1 , and g are helpful for gradually tuning (fine tuning) the
j ςC g tag’s resonant frequency to the exact point when the tag’s resonance
Fig. 3(a) shows the input impedances for the simulation and has already fallen within the desired band.
equivalent circuit models of the proposed tag antenna. It is observed To show the effectiveness of the serpentine patch and the U-shaped
that the input impedance of the equivalent circuit model matches quite arm in shrinking down the tag size, two different tag antennas with
well with that of the simulation, implying that the equivalent circuit sizes of 15 mm × 15 mm and 20 mm × 20 mm are designed and
model in Fig. 2 is reasonable. The power transmission coefficient simulated, with their top and middle layers depicted in Fig. 5(a). Their
and the radiation efficiency of the proposed tag antenna are plotted corresponding simulated realized gains and radiation efficiencies are
in Fig. 3(b) from 860 to 960 MHz. The simulated power transmission shown in Fig. 5(b). With reference to Fig. 5, the realized gain of
coefficient (τ ) is obtained by applying τ = 1 −
2 , where
the tag antenna slightly decreases from −0.78 to −2.29 dBi and
is the simulated reflection coefficient of the tag antenna, whereas the radiation efficiency reduces from 40% to 29.8% when the tag
the simulated radiation efficiency values are extracted directly from size is miniaturized from 25 mm × 25 mm to 20 mm × 20 mm.
the far-field simulation. With reference to Fig. 3(b), the high-power The realized gain and the radiation efficiency of the tag antenna
transmission coefficient of ∼1 is obtainable at 926 MHz, implying are further decreased to −6.44 dBi and 14% when the tag size
4250 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 6, JUNE 2019

Fig. 6. Measurement setup inside the anechoic cabinet.

Fig. 7. Measured and simulated realized gains and measured tag sensitivity
Fig. 5. (a) Top and middle layers of the tag antennas with sizes of 15 mm × in the yz plane at θ = 42° when the tag antenna is placed at the middle of a
15 mm and 20 mm × 20 mm. (b) Simulated realized gains and radiation 20 cm × 20 cm metal plate.
efficiencies for three different sizes of tag antennas.

is reduced to 15 mm × 15 mm, respectively. It can be seen that and resonant frequency between the measurement and the simulation
the same tag resonant frequency of 926 MHz is still obtainable by can be due to fabrication tolerances, chip impedance variations, and
carefully adjusting the dimensions of the serpentine patch and the slight misalignments (polarization mismatch) between the tag and the
U-shaped arm even though the footprint area of the proposed tag reader antenna, which are practically unavoidable [21].
antenna has been shrunk down from 625 mm2 (25 mm × 25 mm) to Fig. 8 depicts the measured read ranges of the proposed tag antenna
225 mm2 (15 mm × 15 mm). It was also found from simulations that at different angles for the three major cutting planes at 921 MHz
the antenna impedance can be changed by varying the permittivity when it is attached on a 20 × 20 cm2 metal plate. The read distances
value of the polyimide film. Higher permittivity is good for further are measured with reference to a maximum allowable transmitting
miniaturizing the tag size. However, the permittivity of the polyimide power of 4 W EIRP. Fig. 8(a) shows the read pattern in the xy
film is an uncontrollable parameter, which cannot be easily changed plane. During the xy plane measurement, the proposed tag antenna
for miniaturizing the tag size in this case. Moreover, polyimide film is placed flat on the turntable and measured using the second reader
with high permittivity is not commercially available. As a result, antenna located at a distance from the boresight (θ = 0°) of the tag
a common polyimide film with εr = 3.3 and loss tangent of tan inside the anechoic cabinet. The x-axis of the proposed tag antenna
δ = 0.003 is selected for our design. [referring to Fig. 1(d)] is aligned in parallel with the polarization of
the second reader antenna so that the measurement began at φ = 0°.
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION With reference to Fig. 8(a), a maximum read distance of 5.4 m is
The realized gain, tag sensitivity, and read patterns of the prototype, obtained at the angle of φ = 90°. This implies that the proposed
which is attached to the center of a 20 cm × 20 cm metal plate, tag antenna and the reader antenna have the same polarization
are measured inside the Voyantic Tagformance Pro measurement (y-polarized) at this particular angle. Besides that, read distances of
cabinet [20], as illustrated in Fig. 6. The system uses an 8 dBi longer than 5 m are obtainable at the angles of (70° ≤ φ ≤ 110°).
linearly polarized reader antenna, and there are two reader antennas The read patterns in the xz plane are shown in Fig. 8(b). Two
in the anechoic cabinet. One of the reader antennas is located right read patterns: the co-polarized (x-polarized wave) and the cross-
above the turntable, while the other is fixed on the right wall inside polarized (y-polarized wave) fields are measured in this plane. For the
the anechoic cabinet (see Fig. 6). The metal plate, which is backed co-polarized read pattern, the read distance is able to reach 9.9 m
by a Styrofoam with permittivity of ∼1, is placed at the middle at the angular ranges of (50° ≤ θ ≤ 55°) and (−55° ≥ θ ≥
of the turntable. Note that, the Monza R6 microchip comes with −60°). At the angular ranges of (20° ≤ θ ≤ 150°) and (−20° ≥
the AutoTune technology. Before any measurements, the AutoTune θ ≥ −150°), the read distance is also longer than 5 m. For
feature is first disabled. The measured and simulated realized gains the cross-polarized pattern, a maximum read distance of 5.7 m is
and the measured tag sensitivity are plotted from 860 to 960 MHz achievable at θ = 0°, with the angular angles of (0° ≤ θ ≤ 20°)
in Fig. 7. The realized gain and tag sensitivity are measured in the and (0° ≥ θ ≥ −30°) reaching a distance greater than 5 m.
yz plane (φ = 90°) at θ = 42° because the maximum realized Referring to Fig. 8(c), a far read distance of 11.9 m is attainable
gain is found to be located at that particular angle at the resonant at θ = 45° in the yz plane measurement for the co-polarized
frequency. Referring to Fig. 7, a measured maximum realized gain (y-polarized wave) read pattern. In general, it is longer than 5 m
of −2.85 dBi is obtained at 921 MHz, while the simulated maximum at the angular ranges of (0° ≤ θ ≤ 150°) and (0° ≥ θ ≥ −150°).
realized gain of −0.78 dBi is found at 926 MHz. The measured The cross-polarized (x-polarized wave) read pattern is not measured
maximum realized gain is found to be lower than its simulated in this case because the realized gains of the proposed tag antenna
counterpart by ∼2 dB. The discrepancies of maximum realized gain for all angles are all lower than −30 dBi in simulation. It should
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 6, JUNE 2019 4251

Fig. 10. (a) Metallic objects. (b) Measured read distances in the yz plane at
θ = 42° when the tag antenna is placed on different metallic objects.

TABLE III
C OMPARISON W ITH O THER M ETAL TAGS

Fig. 8. Measured read distances of the proposed tag antenna in (a) xy,
(b) xz, and (c) yz planes at 921 MHz on a 20 × 20 cm2 metal plate.

Fig. 9. Measured read distances of the proposed tag antenna for different
plate sizes in the yz plane at θ = 42°. (a) Changing length (L). (b) Changing
width (W ).

also be pointed out that the read patterns in the xz and yz planes are
measured using the first reader antenna, as illustrated in Fig. 6. as depicted in Fig. 10(a). Again, the tag is measured at θ = 42° in the
The proposed tag antenna is tested on metal plates with different yz plane. Referring to Fig. 10(b), in general, the proposed tag antenna
sizes, and their read performances are analyzed in Fig. 9. The is able to reach around 6–8 m when it is attached to the metallic
tag is mounted at the middle of the plate and the corresponding objects with a small footprint such as the Candy Containers A
read distances are measured at θ = 42° in the yz plane. The (diameter = 7.5 cm) and B (5.3×10.1 cm2 ), the Biscuit Container A
effect of the metal plate’s length (L) is first analyzed. It can be (10×10 cm2 ), and the Milk Powder Container (diameter = 12.7 cm).
observed from Fig. 9(a) that the maximum read distance of the A read distance of beyond 9.2 m is reachable when it is attached
tag decreases from 14.4 m to 11.7 m with L increasing from to the metallic objects with a large footprint such as the Biscuit
5 to 24 cm. It is found that the read distance remains almost Container B (23.5×17 cm2 ) and Moon Cake Container (21×21 cm2 ).
unchanged when L is longer than 16 cm. Then, the effect of the It has been found that the tag’s resonance fluctuates in the range of
metal plate’s width (W ) is analyzed in Fig. 9(b). It can be seen that 921–923 MHz regardless of the sizes of the metallic objects, showing
changing W from 5 to 24 cm causes the maximum read distance that the tag’s operating frequency is very stable.
to increase from 6.1 to 14.1 m. The read distance does not change Table III shows the comparison of the proposed tag antenna with
much when W is less than 8 cm. The maximum read distance of other metal-mountable tag antennas. Two tag antennas, as shown in
the proposed tag antenna mainly varies with the backing metal plate Fig. 5(a), with sizes of 15 mm × 15 mm and 20 mm × 20 mm are
size because the achievable maximum realized gain fluctuates when included in Table III for comparison as well. To have a fair com-
a different plate is used. On top of that, changes in the main beam parison, the maximum read distances of all the tags are recalculated
direction have also caused the read distance in the original direction using reader output power of 4 W EIRP and chip read sensitivity
to reduce [22]. For both cases, the tag’s resonant frequency fluctuates (Monza R6) of −20 dBm. In general, our proposed tag has lower vol-
in the range of 921–923 MHz, showing that the length (L) and ume, higher radiation efficiency, higher maximum realized gain, and
width (W ) of the metal plate have very little effect on the tag’s longer maximum read distance than the tags in [2], [6], [23], and [24].
resonance, which is much sought after in practical applications. The The tag in [4] is smaller, and it is able to achieve longer read distance
proposed tag antenna is also tested on various metallic objects with when the tag size is enlarged and that in [26] has outperformed our
different sizes, which are randomly purchased from a grocery store, proposed tag antenna in terms of radiation efficiency, realized gain,
4252 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 67, NO. 6, JUNE 2019

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the standard printed-circuit-board (PCB) technology, making the
services/electronic-and-electrical-materials/flexible-rigid-flex-circuit-
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and read distance in [25] are comparable with ours, its radiation [13] ECCOSTOCK PP. Accessed: May 21, 2018. [Online]. Available:
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On the other hand, our tag size can be easily scaled down by simply [14] S. J. Orfanidis. (Aug. 1, 2016). Electromagnetic Waves and Antennas.
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625 to 225 mm2 . For a tag size of larger than 15 mm × 15 mm × IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 873–877,
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