Antenna array in 3D to improve tracking of small HF RFID tag

Abstract : This paper presents an improvement of small RFID tags detection in HF near field, whatever their lateral and angular misalignments, using a complementary sub-coils reader antenna, enhanced by coplanar weakly-coupled resonators, and conformed on a 3D tube. The key ideas of detection improvement are: (i) modification of B -field vector distribution with the complementary coils above the common edge of consecutive loops; (ii) increase of B -field vector diversity and magnitude distribution by a 3D structure conformed on the tube, by realising 2 pairs of Identical Coaxial Loops (ICLs) with face-to-face sub-coils in forward current, and (iii) enhancement of B -field magnitude distribution by resonators included in the complementary sub-coils. Numerical simulations are carried out using High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS). The studied figure-of-merit is the mutual inductance between the tag and the reader coil. Results are reported for the 4 planar complementary sub-coils, the previous structure conformed on the tube and for the structure in which RCL resonators are added in the 3 planar complementary sub-coils. Experimental detection range measurements of each fabricated structure drives to the enhancement of the 3D complementary 4 × 3 sub-coils structure with weakly-coupled RLC resonators in each-sub-coil in terms of read-out distance and detection surface area.