Improved Detection Scheme for Chipless RFIDs Using Prolate Spheroidal Wave Function-Based Noise Filtering

A novel, highly sensitive scheme to detect the resonance peaks in the spectrum of chipless RFID signals is presented. The detection is based on finding the zeros in the derivative of the group delay of the received signal. In order to be able to accurately detect these zeros in the presence of noise, the received signal is filtered using a prolate spheroidal wave function-based model. This allows great increases in the distance at which chipless RFIDs can be accurately read. The detection method can be used standalone or in addition to traditional amplitude-based detection schemes.