60
9, 2010
An Electrically Small Spherical UHF RFID
Tag Antenna With Quasi-Isotropic Patterns
for Wireless Sensor Networks
Hong-Kyun Ryu, Student Member, IEEE, Gichul Jung, Dea-Keun Ju, Sungkyun Lim, Member, IEEE, and
Jong-Myung Woo
Abstract—An electrically small spherical UHF (911.25 MHz)
radio frequency identification (RFID) tag antenna is proposed. A
dipole-typed RFID tag antenna is wound into a spherical shape to
achieve small size and quasi-isotropic pattern. The overall diam-
eter of the antenna is 25 mm (0.076), and the resulting electrical
size is a kr of 0.24. A short stub is employed for good conjugate
impedance matching with a RFID chip (Zchip = 14 j145
).
The designed antenna has a 10-dB bandwidth of 7 MHz (0.77%)
and the maximum readable distance of 132 cm at 5.2 W EIRP.
Index Terms—Electrically small antennas, quasi-isotropic pat-
terns, radio frequency identification (RFID) tag antennas.
HF band (860~960 MHz) passive radio frequency iden-
U tification (RFID) technology has been widely used for
asset identification, retail item management, and tracking ap-
plications due to low production cost with reasonable readable
range [1]. Recently, UHF passive RFID systems have been also
applied to wireless sensor applications [2], [3], where straight or
meandered dipole-typed RFID tag antennas were typically used.
The dipole-typed tag antennas, however, require a half-wave-
length in length and have null points in radiation pattern at both
ends. Therefore, a small antenna size is desirable because of the
need to be incorporated into a limited volume. Also, an isotropic
pattern is preferred to increase detectability regardless of the
tag’s position, which results in improvement of the communi-
cation reliability between the tag and the reader. Under these
considerations, cube-shaped and spherical-shaped antennas are
good candidates. Previously, a cube-shaped RFID tag antenna,
Manuscript received January 08, 2010. Date of publication February
17, 2010; date of current version March 05, 2010. This research was sup-
ported by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE), Korea, under the
Information Technology Research Center (ITRC) support program super-
vised by the Institute of Information Technology Advancement (IITA)
[IITA-2008-(C1090-0801-0034)].
H.-K. Ryu, G. Jung, and J.-M. Woo are with the Department of Radio Sci-
ence and Engineering, College of Engineering, Chungnam National University,
Daejeon 305-764, Korea (e-mail: jmwoo@cnu.ac.kr).
D.-K. Ju is with the RF Team, Research and Development Department, Ubiq-
uitous Gwangyang & Global IT Institute, Gwangyang 545-030, Korea (e-mail:
dkju@ugii.re.kr).
S. Lim is with Hawaii Center for Advanced Communications, College of En-
gineering, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822 USA (e-mail:
limsungk@hawaii.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2010.2043046
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were introduced. Both antennas have electrical sizes
I. INTRODUCTION
1536-1225/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
composed of an inductively coupled feed and meander lines,
was reported for wireless sensor network application [4]. The
electrical size of the antenna is a of 0.49, and the antenna has
quasi-isotropic radiation pattern. Recently, an electrically small
spherical wire antenna [5] and a spherical inverted-F antenna [6]
of 0.42
and 0.86, respectively.
In this letter, we propose an electrically small spherical UHF
RFID tag antenna with quasi-isotropic radiation patterns for po-
tential applications in wireless sensor networks. The electric
size , of the designed antenna is 0.24. A dipole-type RFID
tag antenna is wound into a spherical shape to make the an-
tenna small. Furthermore, quasi-isotropic patterns are achieved
by aligning current directions along the -, -, and -axes. The
antenna is designed at 911.25 MHz for a Korean UHF RFID
band (bandwidth: 5.5 MHz, 0.6%). A short stub is used to match
with a micro RFID chip impedance ( at
911.25 MHz, Alien H2 RFID chip). Simulations are performed
with HFSS ver. 11. A prototype is fabricated and measured for
verification.
II. ANTENNA GEOMETRY
Fig. 1 shows the geometry of the proposed RFID tag antenna.
As shown in Fig. 1(a), the initial design is a half-wavelength
straight dipole antenna with a short stub. The total length of
the initial dipole is 165 mm (0.5 at 911.25 MHz). The RFID
chip is located in the middle of the dipole. Next, as portrayed in
Fig. 1(b), the dipole antenna is packed onto a sphere’s surface,
where the diameter of the sphere is 25 mm (0.076 ) and the elec-
trical size is a of 0.24. The left arm [Fig. 1(c)] and the right
arm [Fig. 1(d)] of the antenna are bent differently at five junc-
tions. The angle at each junction can be either 30 ( ) or 100
( ). Next, conjugate impedance matching between the RFID
chip and the miniaturized tag antenna is achieved by tuning the
short stub length and the overall dipole length. The short stub is
connected between the first junction on the right arm (a junction
between and ) and a point along on the left arm. Asym-
metrical connection of the stub is for ease of fabrication, and it
is confirmed that the performance of the asymmetrical connec-
tion is not much different from that of a symmetrical connection.
Note that the total length (216 mm) of the designed antenna is
longer than that of a half-wavelength straight dipole due to cur-
rent cancellations caused by the small size of the antenna.
RYU et al.: ELECTRICALLY SMALL SPHERICAL UHF RFID TAG ANTENNA WITH QUASI-ISOTROPIC PATTERNS 61

Fig. 1. Geometry of the proposed RFID tag antenna: (a) an initial half-wave-
length straight dipole antenna with a short stub; (b) front view of the spherical
RFID tag antenna; (c) left arm only; (d) right arm only; (e) bottom view.

III. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The return loss with the RFID chip impedance and input
impedance of the spherical RFID tag antenna are simulated
and compared to measured results in Fig. 2. The simulated
minimum return loss is dB at 912 MHz, where the
input impedance of the antenna is . Although the Fig. 2. Return losses and input impedances from simulation and measure-
resonant frequency is slightly shifted from the target frequency ment: (a) return loss (inset: fabricated prototype); (b) input resistance; (c) input
(911.25 MHz), the return loss of dB at 911.25 MHz is reactance.
still acceptable. A prototype of the spherical RFID tag antenna
is fabricated as shown in the inset of Fig. 2(a). A spherical TABLE I
piece of styrofoam ( ) with a diameter of 25 mm DIMENSIONS OF THE SPHERICAL RFID TAG ANTENNA
( ) is used as a support for the antenna, which is made
of thin copper strips. In fabrication, the prototype is tuned to
have a minimum resonance at 911.25 MHz by adjusting the
short stub length ( mm in simulation) and the overall
dipole length ( , mm in simulation). The specific
dimensions of the prototype are illustrated in Table I. Input
impedance was measured first with an Anritsu 37369D vector impedance curves are illustrated in Fig. 2(b) and (c), and the
network analyzer and a quarter-wavelength coaxial balun. agreement is fairly good except for a slight frequency shift.
During the measurement, the measurement plane was moved Next, radiation patterns of the designed tag antenna are sim-
to the end of the quarter-wavelength coaxial balun from the ulated at 911.25 MHz as shown in Fig. 3. Although patterns
initial calibration plane for accurate impedance measurement. in the and planes have dips at 30 and 210 due to the
As a result, the measured input impedance of the prototype complex current of the miniaturized dipole, these dips are com-
is at 911.25 MHz. The return loss is then pensated by patterns. As a result, the total radiation patterns
calculated from the measured input impedance and plotted as (shown as solid lines) become quasi-isotropic in the , , and
a solid line in Fig. 2(a). The measured minimum return loss is planes. This is because both arms of the dipole are wound in
dB at 911.25 MHz, and the measured dB bandwidth the same current direction along each axis as shown in Fig. 4.
is 7 MHz (0.77%), which covers the required Korea UHF RFID The gain of the designed tag antenna is also simulated and the
bandwidth (5.5 MHz, 0.6%). Simulated and measured input maximum gain is 0.75 dBi.

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62 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 9, 2010

Fig. 3. Simulated radiation patterns of the antenna: (a) xz plane; (b) yz plane;
Fig. 5. Measured readable-range patterns in an anechoic chamber: (a) xz plane;
(c) xy plane.
(b) yz plane; (c) xy plane.

is packed into a spherical shape for antenna size reduction and

quasi-isotropic pattern. The diameter of the antenna was 25 mm
( ), and the size of was 0.24. The designed tag antenna
matched well with a RFID chip ( ). The
simulated results agree fairly well with the measured data. The
measured dB bandwidth, 7 MHz (0.77%), covered the re-
quired bandwidth (5.5 MHz, 0.6%). Quasi-isotropic patterns in
Fig. 4. Current directions in both arms along (a) x-axis, (b) y -axis, and the , , and planes were verified by both simulations and
(c) z-axis.
measurements, and the maximum readable range was found to
be 132 cm. The designed antenna would be potentially useful
Finally, the readable-range patterns instead of the gain mea- in wireless sensor networks for environmental and biomedical
surements of the designed tag antenna at 911.25 MHz are mea- applications.
sured in an anechoic chamber since input impedance of the tag
antenna is matched with the chip impedance, and therefore it is REFERENCES
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