Tag identification enhancement by using a distributed antenna structure for radio frequency identification systems

This study presents a distributed antenna structure operating at a frequency of 915 MHz to increase the tag identification sensitivity for passive radio frequency identification (RFID) systems. The distributed antennas are connected to a reader with a four-port power splitter/combiner which consists of Wilkinson power splitters (WPSs), band pass filters (BPFs) and power amplifiers (PAs). Due to the polarisation of the electromagnetic field, the antennas are positioned on opposite sides in both vertical and horizontal directions of the object. This positioning improves the performance of the system, and increases the sensitivity when identifying unclearly positioned tags. An experimental RFID system is also set up to demonstrate the proposed structure. Simulation and experimental results indicate that using four distributed patch antennae can improve tag identification in passive RFID systems.