Read Range/Rate Improvement of LF RFID-Based Tracking Systems
Read Range/Rate Improvement of LF RFID-Based Tracking Systems
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/JRFID.2018.2845669, IEEE Journal
of Radio Frequency Identification
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Abstract—The mechanical vibration of metal structures has a current to supply the tag-chip with the needed power to operate
great effect on Low Frequency (LF) Radio Frequency [10]. The required power is typically between 10 µW and 1 mW
Identification (RFID). The return signal link established from the depending on the tag type, and the response of the tag is an
tag to the reader is affected by induced current caused by magnetic
analog modulated signal [1]. Limited research efforts have
coupling. The interference affects the performance of the RFID
reader by distorting the binary information transmitted by the tag. assessed the acoustic and mechanical interference effect on
This paper presents a new practical technique that avoids the RFID reader performance [10]. Many in-lab tests prove that the
coupling interference, and improves the reading range. The RFID RFID system is liable to mechanical interference such as
system was analyzed at LF level to provide a new solution that random vibration with short duration and high intensity. Several
complies with ISO standards to satisfy the industrial application suggestions and studies tried to improve the RFID reader
requirements. Measurements and experimental results show the
performance for both near field and far field operations based
validity of the proposed solution and show a significant
enhancement in performance. on antenna size [11-17]. Others proposed new methods of
circuit design performance to extend the read range of the RFID
Index Terms—Tracking System, Electromagnetic coupling, reader [18-21].
induced current, RFID System, passive Tag. The paper is organized as follows: Section II introduces the
technical problem and focuses on the sensitivity of LF RFID
readers to mechanical vibration. In section III, a circuit design
I. INTRODUCTION architecture is analyzed and compared. Section III presents a
This work was supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Council C. Jebali and A. B. Kouki are with the Department of Electrical Engineering,
of Canada (NSERC), Agri-Traçabilité Québec (ATQ) and Epsilia Inc. École de Technologie Supérieure, Montreal, QC H3C 1K3, Canada (e-mail:
Chokri.jebali@lacime.etsmtl.ca; ammar.kouki@etsmtl.ca ).
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of Radio Frequency Identification
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of Radio Frequency Identification
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(a)
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of Radio Frequency Identification
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c2 E t t n
2
(3) MECHANICAL VIBRATION
n 1
2f clk
This section describes a solution to overcome the vibration
causing an error in ID detection by altering the tag’s signal. Two
technical solutions are proposed after a characterization
To avoid any problem related to characterizing a Wiener procedure. To analyze the vibration effect, a set of random
process, it is recommended to use the technique of measuring forces is applied to the metallic structure, while the
the difference [24]. backscattered signals emanating from the tag are digitally
The three different jitter metrics of the commercial recorded during a period of time. As shown in Fig. 9, the
oscillators are illustrated in Fig. 6. The crystal oscillator in Fig. measurement of these signals showed that the vibration affects
6(a) has the least frequency instability compared to the MEMS the envelope of the received signal. The first solution reduces
and the programmable oscillators as shown in Fig. 6(b), (c). The the power level from the reader to the tag and ensures that the
impropriety period of the generated output signal of the tag’s load is perfectly matched to reduce the amplitude of the
oscillators gives an idea about the signal quality to be induced magnetic field in the metal structure which is
transmitted to the antenna after amplification. The instability proportional to the incident power. In addition, digital signal
criteria are expressed by the zero crossing error of each processing based on the average calculation of a set of frames
oscillator as: during the active period of the reader will be used.
Then, the signal envelope is re-calculated to ensure the
extraction of the tag ID. However, if the transmission power is
12 t 22 t 32 t (4) decreased by changing the excitation current from 1100 mA to
600 mA the problem is not resolved. With low excitation
This frequency instability is one of the most significant current, the read range of the reader is shortened due to channel
factors limiting the read range of the RFID reader. Before conditions such as path-loss, wave absorption and reflection.
circuit design, the choice of the appropriate oscillator for the LF The required distance to detect a tag is significantly reduced.
RFID reader is based on zero crossing error level and the read The induced current of the metallic structure is still present. To
range of the tag. overcome this limit, a current detector is installed in the PCB
board of the reader to control the over limit of the desired
For each oscillator, the output power Vs frequency is
measured around the fundamental frequency 134.2 kHz as t(n-1) t(n) t(n+1) t(…) t(n+k)
shown in Fig. 7. The crystal oscillator has the highest power
around the fundamental frequency compared to the two other
oscillators. The programmed oscillator provides neither good 12t 12c
stability nor high output power. Depending on the performance
of each oscillator, a set of measurements was taken to assess the
efficiency of the reader read range as illustrated in Fig. 8. The
number of detected tags confirms the performance of each
(a)
oscillator rather than the frequency instability. The Crystal
oscillator has high read range detection Vs distance compared
to the MEMS and the programmable oscillators. t(n-1) t(n) t(n+1) t(…) t(n+k)
(b)
32t 32c
(c)
Fig. 6. Clock jitter metrics of three oscillators, (a) Crystal, (b) MEMS, (c)
Fig. 5. PCB board of the oscillators and PCB board of the Programmable.
amplification stage with MOSFET devices.
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of Radio Frequency Identification
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of Radio Frequency Identification
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read rate varies, but the detection is improved with the proposed PC Scope
idea.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper proposed a fortified traceability system based on
RFID technology. In the RFID system, the identification of
traceability units is based on reading the animal ear tag codes. Fig. 9. Electromagnetic field (EM) measurement using Wave control SMP2
However, at low frequency, the reader is more sensitive to system for the test detection of the RFID reader.
environmental conditions. The detection precision of an animal
4
ear tag is directly affected by the N-cycle jitter of the reference Signal envelope with vibration
oscillator, which reduces the long-term accuracy of the RFID 3 Signal envelope filtered
reader. To overcome this problem, three commercial oscillators 2
Voltage[Volt]
are tested. A signal processing algorithm is applied to increase
1
the read rate of the system; an experimental setup is used for tag
detection with different circuit designs to reach a high read -1
range level. -2
-3
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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/JRFID.2018.2845669, IEEE Journal
of Radio Frequency Identification
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[12] A. Diet, M. Grzeskowiak, Y. L. Bihan, M. Biancheri-Astier, M. Lahrar, Chokri Jebali (M’16) received the B.Sc. degree in
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"Improving RFID tag detection in the presence of mechanical vibration," with focus on devices, intelligent, and efficient RF front-end/transceiver
in 2015 IEEE 16th Annual Wireless and Microwave Technology architectures, circuit and package integration in LTCC, and antenna and
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