A parametric study of platform tolerance of RFID tag antennas and their performance enhancement with artificial magnetic conductors

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is an emerging technology that has attracted considerable recent attention because the RFID system is efficient at tracking and managing commercial inventories using RF signals. In this system, a tag antenna that is attached to an object sends stored data to be acquired by a reader antenna. RFID systems are frequently used to control the inventory of consumer goods; hence, tag antennas may be mounted on objects with widely varying size and material composition. Therefore, it is essential to design the tags so that they are as small in size as possible. Also, for ease of attachment of the tag antenna to the object, it is highly desirable that the antenna be planar. In this paper, we have investigated two designs of passive tag planar-inverted F antennas (PIFAs). Additionally, recognizing that the RF properties of an object are dependent on its material composition, we have carried out a parametric study of the RF characteristics of these antennas when placed over several mounting materials, including cardboard, glass, plastic, and metal.