Carol and Ting’s Paper in Scientific Reports. Congrats!!!
Paper title: Printed, Flexible, Compact UHF‑RFID Sensor Tags Enabled by Hybrid Electronics
Abstract: Sensor data can be wirelessly transmitted from simple, battery-less tags using Radio Frequency Identifcation (RFID). RFID sensor tags consist of an antenna, a radio frequency integrated circuit chip (RFIC), and at least one sensor. An ideal tag can communicate over a long distance and be seamlessly integrated onto everyday objects. However, miniaturized antenna designs often have lower performance. Here we demonstrate compact, fexible sensor tags with read range comparable to that of conventional rigid tags. We compare fabrication techniques for fexible antennas and demonstrate that screen and stencil printing are both suitable for fabricating antennas; these diferent techniques are most useful at diferent points in the design cycle. We characterize two versions of fexible, screen printed folded dipoles and a meandered monopole operating in the 915 MHz band. Finally, we use these antennas to create passive sensor tags and demonstrate over the air communication of sensor data. These tags could be used to form a network of printed, fexible, passive, interactive sensor tags.
Publication:
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Printed, Flexible, Compact UHF‑RFID Sensor Tags Enabled by Hybrid Electronics
Carol Baumbauer,
Matthew G. Anderson,
Jonathan Ting,
Akshay Sreekumar,
Jan M. Rabaey,
Ana C. Arias,
and
Arno Thielens
Scientific Reports,
2020
10,
16543.
[Abstract]
[Bibtex]
[PDF]
Sensor data can be wirelessly transmitted from simple, battery-less tags using Radio Frequency Identifcation (RFID). RFID sensor tags consist of an antenna, a radio frequency integrated circuit chip (RFIC), and at least one sensor. An ideal tag can communicate over a long distance and be seamlessly integrated onto everyday objects. However, miniaturized antenna designs often have lower performance. Here we demonstrate compact, fexible sensor tags with read range comparable to that of conventional rigid tags. We compare fabrication techniques for fexible antennas and demonstrate that screen and stencil printing are both suitable for fabricating antennas; these diferent techniques are most useful at diferent points in the design cycle. We characterize two versions of fexible, screen printed folded dipoles and a meandered monopole operating in the 915 MHz band. Finally, we use these antennas to create passive sensor tags and demonstrate over the air communication of sensor data. These tags could be used to form a network of printed, fexible, passive, interactive sensor tags.
@article{Carol2020nature,
author = {Baumbauer, Carol and Anderson, Matthew G. and Ting, Jonathan and Sreekumar, Akshay and Rabaey, Jan M. and Arias, Ana C. and Thielens, Arno},
title = {Printed, Flexible, Compact UHF‑RFID Sensor Tags Enabled by Hybrid Electronics},
year = {2020},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73471-9},
publisher = {Nature},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73471-9},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
volume = {10},
number = {16543},
thumbnail = {Carol2020nature.PNG},
pdf = {Carol2020nature.pdf}
}
