Directable antennas boost UHF RFID performance

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Mar 28, 2006

Novel antenna technology can be embedded in UHF-band RFID readers to improve RFID tag reading performance.

Novel antenna technology can be embedded in UHF-band RFID readers to improve RFID tag reading performance.

UHF offers significantly greater communications range than other frequency bands.

As a result, the use of UHF RFID systems for full traceability of products has seen tremendous growth in the retail and logistics industries, mainly in the USA but also in other parts of the world.

UHF tags, however, are subject to multipath interference, an inherent problem of electromagnetic signals, which can make an RFID tag unreadable even if it is within the range of the reader.

To solve this problem, Omron developed a new type of antenna technology that can electronically control the electromagnetic field emitted from the reader.

By adopting this technology for UHF RFID systems, Omron has succeeded in reducing reflections, thus minimising the degradation of system performance due to multipath interference.

Whereas an electromagnetic wave from a conventional antenna propagates over a wide area as it travels in a given direction, Omron's new antenna technology allows a wave with directivity to propagate in any specific direction, with the direction of the propagation controllable from the reader.

This makes it possible to direct the wave's direction of propagation so as to avoid objects in the vicinity of the beam that may cause signal reflections.

The result is reduced multipath interference, leading to significantly improved tag read performance of UHF RFID readers.

End-user benefits delivered by this new technology include faster data transfer and more stable communications between the reader and RFID tag compared with conventional RFID systems.

Moreover, it lessens the need for adjustment in varied system installation conditions and minimises impediments to system performance.

Omron's development of new antenna technology is intended to solve issues encountered by UHF RFID systems.

As such, Omron plans to conduct experiments for verifying and evaluating the validity of the technology for various potential applications, with the goal of commercialising and implementing the technology into RFID readers by the latter half of fiscal 2006.