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A System Design for UHF RFID Reader

Chen Ying Zhang Fu-hong

College of Communication College of Communication
Hangzhou Dianzi University Hangzhou Dianzi University
Hangzhou, China Hangzhou, China
chenyinghziee@yahoo.com.cn fuhong@vip.sina.com

Abstract—This paper introduces a system design for RFID reader. Interrogators, also known as Readers, and Tags, also known as
The RFID reader is compatible with EPC Class-1, Generation-2 Labels. An reader transmits information to a Tag by
Standard, operating at the 915MHz band. The UHF RFID reader modulating an RF signal in the 860 MHz – 960 MHz frequency
includes RF analog front end (AFE), the base band design and range. The Tag receives both information and operating energy
clock control. The RFID RF AFE contains transmitting circuit㧘
from this RF signal. Tags are passive, meaning that they
receiving circuit㧘frequency synthesize, circulator, etc. The base
receive all of their operating energy from the reader’s RF
band contains the FPGA chip, 100M hardware resources of
waveform. An reader receives information from a Tag by
network supporting, DDR SDRAM, FLASH, A/D, D/A, etc. The
FPGA chip inseted NiosII soft core. This architecture is an transmitting a continuous-wave (CW) RF signal to the Tag; the
advantage for implementing various kinds of RFID standards by Tag responds by modulating the reflection coefficient of its
changing the soft of NiosII core in FPGA, and efficiently reduces antenna, thereby backscattering an information signal to the
the design and development time and cost. reader. The system is ITF, meaning that a Tag modulates its
antenna reflection coefficient with an information signal only
Keywords-RFID reader;RF AFE; base band; NioUĊ; after being directed to do so by an reader. Readers and Tags are
not required to talk simultaneously; rather, communications are
I. INTRODUCTION half-duplex, meaning that readers talk and Tags listen, or vice
versa. An reader sends information to one or more Tags by
Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a non-contact
modulating an RF carrier using double-sideband amplitude
technology that means to automatically identify people and
shift keying (DSB-ASK), single-sideband amplitude shift
objects on the basis of radio waves. In recent years, RFID has
keying (SSB-ASK) or phase-reversal amplitude shift keying
received much attention as it has rapidly expending with
(PR-ASK) using a pulse-interval encoding (PIE) format. An
applications such as the building access control, toll collection,
reader receives information from a Tag by transmitting an
vehicle parking access control, animal tracking, inventory
unmodulated RF carrier and listening for a backscattered reply.
management and so on.
Tags communicate information by backscatter-modulating the
Several frequency ranges are used in RFID technology,
amplitude and/or phase of the RF carrier. The encoding format,
such as LF (125KHz, 135 KHz), HF(13.56 MHz),
selected in response to reader commands, is either FM0 or
UHF(860~960 MHz), and microwave(2.4 GHz). UHF band is
Miller-modulated sub-carrier.
used worldwide for its long read range and low manufacturing
cost in the distribution field. III. DESIGN IMPLEMENTATION
RFID systems consist of three components: an antenna, a
The figure 1 shows the block diagram of the UHF RFID
reader and a tag. This paper presents a system design for UHF
reader. The UHF RFID reader consist of RF analog front end
RFID reader which is compatible with EPC Class-1,
(AFE), the base band and clock control.
Generation-2 Standard, operating at the 915MHz band.
II. UHF RFID PROTOCOL OVERVIEW
“EPC Radio-frequency Identification Protocols Class 1
Generation 2 UHF RFID Protocol for Communication at 860
MHz – 960 MHz”, in short EPC C1G2, is the standard protocol
developed by EPCglobal for RFID devices. This protocol
outlines the air interfaces and commands between an RFID
reader and an RFID tag.
Figure 1. Block diagram of the RFID reader.
This protocol defines the physical and logical requirements
for a passive-backscatter, Interrogator-talks-first (ITF), radio-
frequency identification (RFID) system operating in the 860
MHz – 960 MHz frequency range. The system comprises
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A. AFE design
The RFID RF AFE contains transmitting circuit,receiving
circuit ˈ frequency synthesize, circulator, etc. The block
diagram of the RFID reader AFE is shown in figure 2. The
circulator, which determines the performance of the reader
system. The signal transmitting to the tag and receiving from
the tag use one antenna, at same frequency and at same time.
Because the transmitting signal need to activate the tags in
distance, transmitter power is far greater than receiver power.
Because of the same antenna, it will leakage transmitting
signal to the receiving path, so that all devices in receiving
circuit will unable to work. We need a good performance
circulator to make transceivers isolation. Because the receiver
power is 0dBm and the transmitter power is 30dBm. we have
chosen the circulator which have 30dBm isolation.
Transmitting circuit received 70M IF signals from base band,
and LC filter filtering the 70M IF signals quantization noise
and spurious. Then these 70M IF signals enter mixer
frequency to UHF signals. These UHF signals including
various stray such as mirror image frequency signals, local
oscillator leakage signals need to RF filter filtering. And then,
these signals need to arrive at 30dBm power by the power
amplifier. Finally, these signals can go out by the circulator
and the antenna. Receiving circuit receive backscatter signals
from tag, these backscatter signals mingled on the continuous
launching carrier wave. These signals are divided into I and Q
subchains. Then these signals pass the low noise amplifier to
amplify, pass filter to filtering. Finally, these signals enter
mixer frequency to 70M IF signals. Unlike an HF transponder,
in UHF transponder the mixed frequency signal cannot be
extracted directly from the carrier. The mixed frequency signal
is created by frequency synthesize.
S backscattering. A tag shall not respond using full-duplex
Figure 2. Block diagram of the RFID reader AFE.
The realization of RF AFE contains HYH504BZ
circulator, MAMXSS0011 mixer, DF915S25A and
LB070DS16 filters, RF5110 RF power amplifier, ATF54143
low noise amplifier. Figure 3 is a photograph of reader RF AFE.

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Figure 3. The photograph of RF AFE.
B. Baseband design
The block diagram of the reader base band is shown in
figure 4. The base band contains the FPGA chip which inserts
the NIOS II soft core system to carry on protocol processor,
100M hardware resources of network supporting, DDR
SDRAM, FLASH, A/D, D/A, etc. The main task of the base
band section is to treat the communication protocol. The reader
is compatible with EPC Class-1, Generation-2 Standard. The
standard defines the protocol for a UHF passive backscatter
RFID system, featuring the following capabilities. An reader
sends information to one or more tags by modulating an RF
carrier using double-sideband amplitude shift keying (DSB-
ASK), single-sideband amplitude shift keying (SSB-ASK) or
phase-reversal amplitude shift keying (PR-ASK) using a pulse-
interval encoding (PIE) format. Tags receive their operating
energy from this same modulated RF carrier. A reader receives
information from a tag by transmitting an unmodulated RF
carrier and listening for a backscattered reply. Tags
communicate information by backscatter-modulating the
amplitude and/or phase of the RF carrier. The encoding format,
selected in response to reader commands, is either FM0 or
Miller-modulated sub-carrier. The communications link
between readers and tags is half-duplex, meaning that tags shall
not be required to demodulate reader commands while
communications to a mandatory or optional command. An
reader manages tag populations using three basic operations: a)
Select. The operation of choosing a tag population for
inventory and access. A select command may be applied
successively to select a particular tag population based on user-
specified criteria. This operation is analogous to selecting
records from a database. b) Inventory. The operation of
identifying tags. A reader begins an inventory round by
transmitting a Query command in one of four sessions. One or
more tags may reply. The reader detects a single tag reply and
requests the PC, EPC, and CRC-16 from the tag. Inventory
comprises multiple commands. An inventory round operates in
one and only one session at a time. c) Access. The operation of
communicating with (reading from and/or writing to) a tag. An
individual tag must be uniquely identified prior to access.
Access comprises multiple commands, some of which employ
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one-time-pad based cover-coding of the R=>T the clock produces 1 group 220MHz clock, which takes the
link. DAC sampling clock. In this clock module, we select the
55MHz clock as ADC and the FPGA clock, which facilitates
JTAG the synchronous processing in ADC and the FPGA logarithm.
Moreover the DAC uses 4 time of interpolation filters, after
Rx
,
Button LED interpolates filter, the data rate become 220MHz from 55MHz,
therefore the sampling frequency of DAC is 220MHz.
AD

demodulator
Ethernet
PC
PHY&MAC

DDR SDRAM IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Memory
We divided into three parts to verify the results of this reader:
FLASH Memory
The waveform of transmitting signal from reader, the
Tx modulator NIOS II waveform of backscatter signal from tag and the signal quality
DA

indicators. Signals launching from antenna to tags acquisition

by the spectrum analyzer show in figure 6. These signals use
PIE coding, signal power at 30dBm, and low signal power
clock
4.4dBm. When the distance is 1.5m between antenna and tag,
Figure 4. Block diagram of the RFID reader baseband.
the tag was activated. Information by backscatter-modulating
the amplitude and phase of the RF carrier acquisition by the
The architecture is not only good for being implemented in spectrum analyzer show in figure 7.
EPC C1G2 protocol, but also for other RFID standards.
Depending on their different logic function, the base band is
divided into several modules. The A/D changes the 70M IF Rx
signal into digital signal. The Rx signal is demodulate and
decoder by the demodulate and decoder module. The Tx signal,
which is performed by modulated and encoder with the PIE, is
modulate and coder by the modulate and coder module. The
DA changes digital signal into the 70M analog Tx signal. The
control unit, which use the NiosII soft core inserted in FPGA,
performs all commands and controls. This architecture is an
advantage for implementing various kinds of RFID standards
by changing the soft of NiosII core. The module of DDR
SDRAM, FLASH implement the control of the memory. The
ethernet module performs commands and controls with PC.
The realization of base band contains AD9248, DA5674,
Cyclone EP2C35F672I FPGA, MT46V16M16TG DDR Figure 6. Waveform of transmitting signal from reader .
SDRAM and S29GL256N FLASH .Figure 5 is a photograph of
an assenmbled testing PCB of base band.

Figure 5. The photograph of base band.
C. Clock design
The clock module produces 1 group 55MHz clock, which
actuates by the electric circuit in the base band module. The
clock divide into 5 groups, which uses to make the ADC
sampling clock (1 group), the PLL clock in FPGA works (3
groups), as well as disposition chip clock (1group). Moreover,
Figure 7. Waveform of backscatter signal from tag.
The tag backscatter signal quality indicators show in figure
8. The backscatter signal modulation depth is 15.859%, the
duty cycle is 49.041%, rise times are 1.713us, fall times are
3.8934us, receiving link frequency is 64.20 kHz, which is
compatible with the EPC Class-1, Generation-2 Standard.



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Figure 8. Backscatter signal quality indicators.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we presents a system design for UHF RFID
reader. The UHF RFID reader is compatible with EPC Class-1,
Generation-2 Standard, operating at the 915MHz band. The
UHF RFID reader includes RF AFE, the base band and clock
control. The base band, which inserted the NiosII soft core in
FPGA, performs all commands and controls. This NIOSII
based baseband structure is an advantage for implementing

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various kinds of RFID standards, and efficiently reduces the
design and development time and cost.
REFERENCES
[1] EPCglobal, “EPC radio-frequency identity protocols class-1 generation-2
UHF RFID protocol for communications at 860 MHz - 960 MHz version
1.0.9”, EPCglobal Standard Specification, 2004.
[2] F.Zhou, C.Chen, D.Jin, C.Huang, and H.Min, “Evaluating and optimizing
power consumption of anticollision protocols for applications in RFID
systems”, InProc.ISLPED,2004.
[3] C. Chatmon, T.vanLe, and M.Burmester, “Secure anonymous RFID
authentication protocols”, Technical Report TR060112, Florida State
University, Department of Computer Science, Tallahassee, Florida,
USA,2006.
[4] Chen Linying, Hou Chunping,Mao Luhong , Wu Shunhua, Xu Zhenmei,
and Wang Zhenxing, “A Verification Development Platform forPassive
UHF RFID Reader”, Chiese Journal of Emiconductors, Beijing, 2007,
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[5] A. K. Jones, R. Hoare, D. Kusic, J. Fazekas, andJ. Foster. “An fpga-based
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[6] ZHANG Ting; XIONG Zhang, etc, “Design of Networked Radio
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