A Compact Broadband Patch Antenna for UHF RFID Tags
1, 2 1, 3 1, 4
Jun Zh. HUANG , Peng H. YANG
1
The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China
2
School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, SJTU, Shanghai, China
3
School of Electronic Engineering, UESTC, Chengdu, China
4
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801-2991, USA
5
HK R&D Center for Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Hong Kong SAR, China
Email: huangjun@eee.hku.hk
Abstract — A small broadband patch antenna for RFID tags
is proposed in this paper. Using inset-feed technique together
with two asymmetrical slots embedded from two non-radiation
edges deep into the center of the square patch, two resonances
with similar radiation characteristics can be excited. It thus
increases the bandwidth of the antenna. The two slots can also
reduce the size of the patch, and the inset feeding provides the
required input reactance for matching as well. A prototype is
fabricated and tested, which shows that half-power bandwidth
of this small tag antenna (65 mm by 65 mm by 2 mm) can cover
the entire UHF band (860 MHz – 960 MHz). The read range is
over 2 meters when mounted on metallic platform.
Index Terms — RFID, tag antenna, broadband patch antenna,
compact antenna, low-profile antenna, platform-tolerant tag.
I. INTRODUCTION
The advent of computer technology and the development of
computational electromagnetics have altered the field of
antenna design. Antennas can now be designed with invoking
physical insight and heuristics followed by a large number of
cut-and-try numerical experiments. Computer technology
together with advances in computational electromagnetics
makes the virtual prototyping (numerical experiment) cheap
and fast.
Tag antenna plays a vital role in determining the overall
performance of the RFID system because the energy required
to power up the chip and the signal receiving are all from the
antenna [1]. Most of the existing UHF RFID tag antennas are
commonly fabricated as modified printed dipoles [2, 3]
because of low cost and acceptable gain. But their
performances can be greatly deteriorated by the different
objects they are attached to. For instance, these dipoles
cannot receive energy from readers when mounted on
metallic platform, since the tangential electric field on the
metallic surfaces must be zero to fulfill the boundary
conditions [4].
Patch antennas were proposed to overcome these problems
because they inherently require ground planes and also due to
the low-profile nature [4-7]. However, these patch antennas
are narrowband and thus can only be used in specific regions
of the world. Broadband tag antennas with UHF band
coverage are necessary for universal RFID systems. Some
broadband patch antennas for RFID tags were then proposed
[8, 9], but they are either big in size or bad in gain stability,
which severely limit their application.
The traditional broadband techniques usually use parasitic
patches stacked on top of the main radiating patch or coplanar
with the main patch to create several neighboring resonances
978-1-4244-2802-1/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE
5
, W. C. CHEW , and Terry Tao YE
for thin patches. Alternatively, one can embed U-slots or use
L-probe feed to cancel the long-probe-introduced inductance
for thick patches [10]. The former requires large lateral size
or multi-layer structure, which greatly increases the
fabrication cost and thus limits their application in RFID
system. The latter is also not suitable for designing RFID tags
because of the low-profile requirement.
To design a compact low-profile patch antenna is a big
challenge. Recently, a new broadband technique which
possesses both small size and low profile features was
proposed in [11], which was enabled by lots of staggered
slots cut from the non-radiation edges. However, it was too
complicated and the physics was not clear. This paper
demonstrates that, by properly embedding two asymmetrical
slots from the non-radiation edges and controlling the
position of inset feed, two modes with similar radiation
characteristics can be excited and both can be matched to the
feed. At the same time, the feed line can be extended to
provide the large inductance required by matching to the
capacitive chip impedance.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the
geometry and dimensions of the proposed antenna are given.
The physics is discussed and design guideline is given.
Section III shows the prototype of the proposed antenna, low-
cost fabrication procedure is given as well. Section IV gives
the simulation and measurement results and finally
conclusion is made in section V.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
Fig. 1 shows the geometry and design parameters of the
proposed antenna. Table 1 gives the optimized design
parameters. The square patch is only 49 mm by 49 mm and
the FR4 substrate is 65 mm by 65 mm by 2 mm.
Two slots are cut from the two non-radiation edges deep
into the center of the patch to create two current paths for two
TM01 modes as illustrated in Fig. 2. The current path of the
upper half patch is slightly shorter than the lower half patch,
so the higher resonance is mainly dependent on the length of
the upper slot L up and the lower resonance is mainly
dependent on that of the lower slot L low . Increasing L up or
L low will decrease the resonant frequencies of each mode.
The current paths shown in Fig. 2 also give the information
that high cross-polarization is expected for the two
resonances. However, this is not problematic because most of
the RFID readers are circularly polarized. Simulation study
also shows that the polarization direction may be changed
between the two resonant frequencies. Therefore, in order for
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gain stability over the entire frequency band, square patch is TABLE I
chosen rather than rectangular patch. Since the two modes SUMMARY OF OPTIMIZED DESIGN PARAMETERS
can both radiate, the gain is expect to be more stable within Parameters Values ( λ0 )
the bandwidth than the antenna proposed in [9]. W patch 49.0 mm 0.147
The distances between the slots and the feed point greatly
Wg 65.0 mm 0.195
influence the input resistance. By properly adjusting the
h 2.0 mm 0.006
position of the feed and the slots, i.e. Linset , Pup and Plow , two
εr 4.1 NA
modes can be both matched to the required chip resistance.
Pup 35.5 mm NA
The other end of the microstrip line is extended to the edge
of substrate and shorted to ground providing the large input Wup 2.0 mm NA
inductance [7, 9], which is required by conjugate matching to L up 22.0 mm NA
the strongly capacitive chip impedance [2]. Decreasing Ws Plow 32.5 mm NA
and increasing Ls both increase the input inductance while W low 2.0 mm NA
the input resistance is almost unchanged. L low 23.5 mm NA
The RFID chip can be easily mounted on the gap reserved Ls 27.0 mm NA
on the patch. The gap is slightly wider than Ws for easy Ws 1.0 mm NA
mounting of the strap. Lf 3.5 mm NA
Pup Wup Wchip 2.0 mm NA
y Linset 24.5 mm NA
Winset 7.0 mm NA
x
Linset Lup
Wchip III. PROTOTYPES
Ws Winset Wpatch Prototypes were fabricated as shown in Fig. 3. FR4 is
Ls Lf
chosen as the substrate because it is cheap. The large
dielectric loss also lowers Q value of the resonant structure,
which consequently increase the bandwith.
Llow The fabrication process is described as follows. Copper foil
was firstly pasted onto the substrate, and the foil should be
folded to the ground side of the patch to form the shorting
Plow Wlow strip. Laser etching was then used to etch out the shape of the
z
y (a) patch. The unused parts were then removed manually.
Patch Finally, Alien chip HIggs-2 was attached onto the gap
reserved on the feed line.
Shorting Strip Substrate εr h
Ground
Wg
(b)
Fig. 1. Structure of the proposed broadband antenna. (a) top view;
(b) side view.

Higher Mode

Lower Mode

Fig. 3. Prototype of the proposed broadband patch antenna with

Fig. 2. Current paths of the two resonant modes. Alien chip attached.

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 IV. SIMULATION AND MEASUREMENT
−0.03
The proposed antenna was simulated by advanced antenna
simulation program FastAnt [12]. Since the feed of the −0.02

proposed antenna is balanced, the impedance cannot be

−0.01
directly measured by the standard coaxial cable. With the
two-port measurement method reported in [13], we can
0
measure the input impedance using Agilent 8753ES vector
network analyzer. 0.01
From Fig. 4, we can see that the simulated and measured
input impedance match well and they are both matched to 0.02
chip impedance. It can also be easily seen that the proposed
antenna has two resonances located at about 870 MHz and 0.03

935 MHz respectively. −0.03 −0.02 −0.01 0 0.01 0.02 0.03

180 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

160
(a)
140
−0.03
120 real(Zchip)
Impedance(Ohm)

−img(Zchip)
−0.02
100 simulation
simulation
80 measurement −0.01
measurement
60
0
40
0.01
20

0 0.02
0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1
Frequency(GHz)
0.03
Fig. 4. Simulated and measured input impedance against
frequency. Chip impedance is also plotted for comparison. −0.03 −0.02 −0.01 0 0.01 0.02 0.03

0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

Fig. 5 shows the simulated and measured return loss. The
measured half power bandwidth (return loss < -3 dB) extends (b)
from 855 MHz to 970 MHz, which covers the whole Fig. 6. Simulated current distribution: at (a) 870 MHz and (b) 935
operating frequency band (860 MHz – 960 MHz) for passive MHz.
UHF RFID worldwide.
Current distribution at the two resonant frequencies is
0
shown in Fig. 6. The current of lower resonant mode is
mainly along the lower half patch and that of the higher mode
−2
is mainly along the upper half patch, which coincides with
−4 our prediction in Fig. 2.
Maximum readable distances of this antenna were also
Return Loss(dB)

−6 measured using Intemec circularly polarized reader. The

EIRP of the reader was set to 25 dBm and the operating
−8 frequency hops from 900 MHz to 930 MHz. The read range
is 2.1 m when the antenna is mounted on metal plate with
−10
size > 100 mm by 100 mm, which is acceptable for most
applications. The read rage can be expected to be over 3.5m
−12 simulation when EIRP of the reader is increased to 30 dBm. We are not
measurement
−14
able to carry out read range measurement at other RFID
0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1 frequencies at present due to the limitation of RFID reader we
Frequency(GHz)
used, but it can be expected that this antenna can work well at
Fig. 5. Simulated and measured return loss with respect to any other RFID frequency band. Therefore, this compact
frequency. broadband tag antenna can be used globally.

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 V. CONCLUSION
A patch antenna with broad operating bandwith and
compact size is proposed for RFID tag use in this paper.
Measured impedance bandwidth can cover the whole UHF
RFID frequency band, and the total size is only 65 mm by
65mm by 2mm. Read range at 25 dBm EIRP is over 2 meters.
Therefore, high performance low-cost characteristics of this
antenna make it a good candidate for platform-tolerant tags in
universal RFID systems.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is supported by Hong Kong R&D center for
Logistics and Supply Chain Management Enabling
Technologies. The authors wish to acknowledge the great
help from Dr. ZHU Hailong, CHEN Xiaosheng and LU Feng
in LSCM, and Dr. WU Yukuan in Zhongshan for antenna
fabrication and testing.

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