On the design of NFC antennas for contactless payment applications

The increasing interest in using Near Field Communications (NFC) technology at 13.5MHz is growing rapidly in the area of contactless payments, as well as numerous other applications, between devices that are within 10cm distance apart. However, there is growing concern that the use of such devices for contactless payments invites problems with regards to using metallic objects in the vicinity of the two devices to act as “rogue” antennas, which eavesdrop information during a financial transaction is taking place. This paper presents aspects of designing H-antennas both for the two devices communicating while also identifying the means by which rogue antennas can be created by exploiting real life metallic structures. In this paper, a shopping trolley is taken as an example.