Ultra-Wideband Radio Frequency Identification Systems

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1 Ultra-Wideband Radio Frequency Identification Systems

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3 Faranak Nekoogar Farid Dowla Ultra-Wideband Radio Frequency Identification Systems

4 Faranak Nekoogar Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Livermore, CA, USA Farid Dowla Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Livermore, CA, USA ISBN e-isbn DOI / Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (

5 To my son, Connor, for his patience throughout preparation of this book. Faranak Nekoogar To my son, Maxime, for his Ultrawideband imagination, and my daughter, Emma, for her Remote Powering energy! Farid Dowla

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7 Preface Long-range radio-frequency (RF) tags are becoming increasingly important in a number of different sensor network applications. Our effort in this book is to discuss the potential advantages of ultra-wideband (UWB) RF systems for designing longrange RF tags that are passive; i.e. sensors that communicate without batteries. While the technology of UWB RF tags is still at an early stage of research and development, today UWB communications and radar systems can be considered mature technologies. The GHz s of bandwidth of pulsed RF UWB communications and radar systems have proven to be extremely useful in harsh electromagnetic (EM) environments. Because RF tags address similar technical challenges faced by wireless communication and radar systems, in this book we discuss the key technical challenges of short and long range passive RF tags and discuss how UWB signals and systems might be employed to address those challenges. When we began the project of writing a book on this subject, our goal was to focus just on UWB RF tags as that was the area of our research and there was a gap on this subject in the technical literature. However, during the process of writing the book, it became clear that the reader would benefit tremendously by including a comparative discussion on narrow-band and low-frequency RF tags in order to evaluate the benefits of UWB RF tags. The first few chapters have been developed to not only review the history and technology of RF tags and RFIDS, but also to discuss the physics of narrowband signaling for RFID s, their advantages and limitations. The later chapters of this book are more focused on discussing the unique features of UWB design that might lead to important insights and breakthrough in future UWB RF tags, and their use in important applications. In our discussion, throughout the book, we have attempted to be up to date and concise, but with extensive references and bibliographies. The subject of RFID has an audience with a diverse technical background. We have attempted to maintain the contents at an introductory level, while pointing out some of the key reference books and journal papers, for those readers wanting a vii

8 viii Preface more rigorous discussion on a subject. We expect this book would be most useful to those wanting a concise overview of the subject. In particular, technical managers responsible to making decisions on the potential use of RFID s for special application areas, might be the ideal audience for this book. Faranak Nekoogar Farid Dowla

9 Acknowledgement In the process of preparing this book, I received tremendous amount of help and support from many individuals that made this work possible and I m very grateful to each one of them. First I would like to thank the staff of Springer, especially Alex Green, for his support of this project. I would like to sincerely thank my co-author, Prof. Farid Dowla, for his collaboration and mentorship throughout my academic and professional growth. Without his support, I would not be where I am today. I m also very grateful to the support of UWB RFID research by the Department of Energy s Office of Dismantlement and Transparency and the Non-proliferation Research & Development Global Safeguards Program. I would like to express my thanks to Prof. Daniel Deavours and Karthik Narayanan for allowing me to publish parts of their valuable research in benchmarking of commercial UHF passive tags. My special thanks goes to Prof. Sergey Makarov and Dr. Vishwanath Iyer for their support of sections of this book. Finally, I m very thankful to my co-workers and friends, Dave Benzel, Saied Haddad, and Roger Tilley for their constant support and help with field experiments, as well as data collection and preparation of some of the images presented in this book. Faranak Nekoogar ix

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11 Contents 1 Basics of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Systems Introduction RFID Background Evolution of RFID Systems RFID Frequency Bands Low Frequency (LF) Band High Frequency (HF) Band Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Band Microwave (MW) Band Overview of RFID Tags Active Tags Semi-active Tags Passive Tags Semi-passive Tags Memory Components of RF Tags Classification of RFID Tags by EPCglobal Overview of RFID Readers Magnetic Coupling: Near Field Electric Coupling: Far Field Middleware and Applications Software RFID Applications Summary References Bibliography Characteristics and Limitations of Conventional RFIDs Introduction Physics of Narrowband Signaling Performance Limitations Around Metallic Surfaces Signal Detection and Jamming Signal Fading and Blockage xi

12 xii Contents High Power Used by Active Tags Limited Range for Passive Tags Limitations to Worldwide Operation Performance Benchmark of UHF Passive Tags Read Performance near Metal and Water Frequency Dependent Performance Overview of Ultra-Wideband Technology Summary References Bibliography Improvements in RFID Physical Layer Using Ultra-wideband Signals Introduction UWB Signaling for Rfid Systems Improved Performance Around Metallic Surfaces Immunity to Active and Passive Attacks Encryption at Physical Layer Using Pulse Modulation Techniques Capability to Detect Tags Behind Walls Accurate Tag Positioning Capability Longer Battery Life for Active UWB Tags Extended Range for Passive Tags with UWB Remote Powering Global Solution Due to Operation in Unlicensed Spectrum Small Form Factor and Low Cost Tags UWB Modulation Schemes for RFID On-Off-Keying (OOK) : Pulse Presence or Absence Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) : Pulse Strength Pulse Position Modulation (PPM) : Pulse Location Bi-phase Modulation : Pulse Polarity Transmitted-Reference Modulation : Pulse Delay Time-Reversal Modulation : Pulse Matching Performance Evaluation Of Commercial UWB RFID Systems MSSI RTL System Ubisense RTL System Performance Benchmark Experiments Concluding Remarks Summary References Bibliography... 85

13 Contents xiii 4 Ultra-Wideband Technology for RF Tags: Concepts, Implementations, and Regulations Introduction UWB Signals and Systems UWB Pulse Operations and Implementations Mathematical Representation of UWB Signals Pulse Repetition Frequency of UWB Signals UWB Pulse Generation Baseband Diode Sampling Communications, Radars, and Tags RF Tags: Remote Sensing of Modulation RF Tags from a UWB Perspective Use of Charge Pumps for Long-Range Remote Powering of Tags Tag Reader using the UWB Radar FCC Regulations for RFID Systems FCC Rules for Narrowband RFID Systems FCC Rules for Ultra-Wideband RFID Systems Summary References Bibliography Antenna Design for Ultra-wideband Passive RFID Systems Introduction Antenna Requirements for Passive UWB RFID Systems EM Field Radiation and Antennas for UWB RFID Readers Remote Powering of Passive Tags in the Far-Field with Propagating EM Waves Antenna Design and Reciprocity Theorems EM Radiation Occurs from Acceleration of Electrons Non-Resonant UWB Antennas Power Flow and Antenna Polarization Antenna Arrays and Beam Pattern UWB Spotforming for Remote Powering Antennas for UWB RFID Tags Overview of UWB Antennas Design Characteristics of the Planar Monopole/Dipole Antennas Patch Antennas Antennas for Wearable UWB RFID Tags Textile Antennas Textile UWB Antenna Impedance Matching and On-Chip Antennas UWB Antenna Feed Design: Key to Impedance Matching

14 xiv Contents On-Chip Antennas Bulk Si Based On-Chip Antennas Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) Technology Summary References Bibliography RF Tags for Special Applications Introduction Monitoring of High Valued Items Bio-Medical Sensor Systems RF Tags for Ammunition Inventory Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) Detection Automotive Assembly Indoor Personnel Location and Tracking for Emergency Responders Summary Bibliography Glossary Index

15 List of Acronyms 2D 3D ADC CEPT CMF CMOS COTS CW db dbm DH-TR EIRP EM EPC EPROM ET ETSI FCC FFT GHz GPR GPS HF IF IFF ISM Two-dimensional Three-dimensional Analog to digital converter Conference european posts and telecommunications Classical matched filter Complementary metal oxide semiconductor Commercially off the shelf Continuous waveform Decibel Decibel in milliwatts Delay hopped transmitted reference Equivalent isotropic radiated power Electromagnetic field Electronic product code Erasable programmable memory Equivalent time sampling European telecommunications standards institute Federal communications commission Fast fourier transforms Giga Hertz Ground penetrating radar Global positioning system High frequency Intermediate frequency Identification, friend or foe Industrial, scientific, and medical xv

16 xvi List of Acronyms KHz LF LOS LPI/D LTCC Mbps MHz NLOS OOK PA PAM PEC PPM PRI PSD Radar RCS RF RFID ROM RPMB SNR SRD Kilo Hertz Low frequency Line of site Low probability of interception and detection Low temperature co-fired ceramic Mega bits per second Mega hertz Non line of site On off keying Power amplifier Pulse amplitude modulation Perfect electric conductor Pulse position modulation Pulse repetition interval Power spectral density Radio detection and ranging Radar cross section Radio frequency Radio frequency identification Read only memory Remote-powering modulated-backscattering Signal to noise ratio Step recovery diodes TH-PPM Pulse position modulation with time hopping TR Transmitted reference UHF UWB VHF WBAN WORM WLAN Ultra-high frequency Ultra-wideband Very high frequency Wireless body area network Write once, read many Wireless local area network

UTag: Long-range Ultra-wideband Passive Radio Frequency Tags

UCRL-TR-229163 UTag: Long-range Ultra-wideband Passive Radio Frequency Tags Farid Dowla March 16, 2007 Disclaimer This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States