3-D and Package-Conformal UHF RFID Antennas with

Enhanced Performance
Feng Lu
Terry T. Ye
Hong Kong R&D Center for Logistics and Supply Chain Management1
Emails: {flu, tye}@lscm.hk
Abstract Traditional UHF RFID tags follow the formfactor of a bar-code label. Constrained by the limited design
space, the antennas are hard to be optimized and customized
for specific product packages, especially for the packages
containing RF non-friendly contents. In this paper, we
proposed two 3-D and package conformal antenna designs.
These antennas can either enhance the gain in the desired
direction, or beam the radiation into the direction with less
obstructions and shielding. The antenna elements can be
fabricated on the same substrate and embedded into
different facets of the package. When being folded into
boxes, the 3-D antenna geometry will be placed into the
right locations. Both HFSS simulation and field tests
demonstrate that the performance of the proposed antennas
is significantly enhanced.

Similar to the parasitic elements in Yagi-Uda type

antennas, the reflectors and directors can either
reduce the interference from unwanted directions, or
increase the reception in desired directions. Our
simulation and field tests show that RFID
performance and accuracy can be greatly enhanced
with these 3-D antenna designs, especially for those
packages containing RF non-friendly contents, such
as water, metal and oil, etc.

INTRODUCTION

UHF RFID performance relies highly on antenna

designs. Currently, most RFID antenna geometries
follow the form-factor of barcode labels, i.e., a
single and planar layer of copper/aluminum plating
or conductive ink on paper or PET substrate [1].
This form-factor constraint comes from the fact that
nowadays, RFID tags are still slap-and-shipped
directly onto packages.
However, as RFID
technology is prevailing into item-level products,
RFID labels are beginning to be directly embedded
into product packages.
Embedding RFID into packages not only reduces
the RFID tagging cost overhead, it also gives more
freedom for designers to optimize and customize the
antenna performance for particular applications.
With the embedded antenna techniques, designers
will be able to construct 3-D and package-conformal
antennas, i.e., different antenna geometry elements
extending into different facets of the package, or
multiple conductive layers embedded with different
package layers [2].
In this paper, we propose several schemes to
enhance and optimize UHF RFID performance by
constructing the antennas in a 3-D geometry that
conforms to the form-factors of host packages.
These 3-D schemes use extra conducting materials
embedded in different facets of the packages as
parasitic elements to form reflectors (as shown in
Figure 1), or directors (as shown in Figure 2).

Figure 1: 3-D RFID antenna with reflectors.

Figure 2: 3-D RFID antenna with a director.

It should also be noted that these 3-D antennas do
not necessarily increase the package manufacturing
cost significantly. The antenna elements can be
embedded into the lamination layer of each facet
during the manufacturing process. When the
package is folded and assembled, these elements are
placed into the right locations automatically and the
3-D antenna is constructed.
The paper is organized as follows; Section 2
discusses the limitations of the traditional label-like
antennas. Section 3 introduces the advantages of
directional antennas. Two new antennas, the doublereflector antenna and the folded-director antenna are
proposed in Section 4 and Section 5. Simulation and
test results are analyzed in Section 6.

This research was supported by the ITF project GHP/046/07LP funded by Hong Kong R&D Center for Logistics and Supply Chain
Management (LSCM).

978-1-4244-3386-5/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

625

2.

LIMITATIONS OF LABEL-LIKE RFID

The interactions between RFID tags and readers can

be achieved through two mechanisms, 1) inductive
coupling or 2) back-scattering [ 3 ]. Inductive
coupling needs two coil antennas to interact in close
proximity (within one wavelength range), so it is
only good for near-field-communication (NFC)
applications [4]. In comparison, in back-scattering,
RFID tags can modulate the incoming CW
(continuous wave) from the readers by varying the
input impedance, and scatter the modulated signal
back to the readers. The propagated signal can be
detected by the reader in long range. Therefore, the
back-scattering antennas are widely used in far-field
communications (FFC) applications.
Most RFID tags deployed in supply chain
applications use the dipole antenna and variations.
The dipole antennas have a simple geometry, good
radiation pattern and moderate gain. More
importantly, the dipole antennas only need one
single layer of conductive materials, the RFID tags
can be easily designed into the form of a traditional
label [5].
However, slap-and-ship of RFID labels on
product packages is not the ideal practice, i.e., it is
not cost effective and the tags are prone to be
damaged.
More
importantly,
because
the
performance of RFID antennas is greatly dependent
on the packaging and content materials as well as
the form-factors of the package itself, generalpurpose RFID tags will not yield the best
performance in most applications.
Embedding RFID tags into product packages can
give antenna designers more freedom to explore
novel antenna structures. By conforming and
embedding into packages, antenna geometries do
not have to be flat; its structure does not have to be
constrained by the label thickness. Particularly,
RFID tags can be tailor-made for a particular
product based on the package materials, formfactors, and even contents inside the packages. By
factoring-in the product-specific characteristics into
the antenna designs, RFID system performance can
be greatly optimized and maximized [6].
3

penetrate the EM-absorbing materials, on the

other hand, multiple reader antennas are placed
surrounding the packages, even if the signals in one
direction are shielded by the contents, the reader
antennas can still pick up signals from other
directions.
An alternative, and also easier approach is to
embed a directional antenna inside the package, the
antenna can be pre-tuned to have an enhanced gain
in the direction of RF non-friendly materials, or
beam into the direction that is not blocked by the
metallic contents.
Directional antennas, based primarily on dipole
structure with parasitic elements, had been
investigated for many years. These antennas, such as
corner reflector antenna by J. D. Kraus [ 7 ], and
Yagi-Uda antenna [ 8 ] had been widely used in
almost all telecommunication applications.
In this paper, we propose two new variations of the
directional antennas, 1) the double-reflector antenna
and 2) the folded-director antenna. These two
antennas are designed specifically to conform to the
packages, i.e., carton boxes. They utilize the package
shapes and assembly methods to form 3-D and
directional antennas that can achieve the designed
gain or beam angle. The details of these two antennas
are discussed below.
Alien UHF Gen2 chip Higgs-2 is used in both
antenna design and field tests. The antenna
performance and other specifications are simulated in
HFSS. The antennas impedance is matched to the tag
chip inside [9].
4.

DOUBLE-REFLECTOR ANTENNA

The geometry of the double-reflector antenna is

shown in Figure 3. The antenna elements can be
fabricated on one layer, upon the package is folded
to form a carton box (along the folding line in the
figure), the antennas center dipole will be placed
along the box edge, while the other two parasitic
elements will be placed on two sides that connect to
the corner, and perpendicular to each other. The
center dipole is only 2mm in width and has an RFID
tag chip mounted in the centre.

DIRECTIONAL RFID ANTENNAS

RFID antennas suffer significant degradation from

the contents inside the package. The contents can
either absorb the EM wave energy, such as in the
case of water and oil rich contents, or shield and
reflect the EM wave in certain directions, such as in
the case of metallic contents.
In RFID applications, several approaches are
deployed to address the degradation issue. On one
hand, antennas with higher gain are used to

Figure 3: Geometry of the double-reflector antenna.

The double-reflector antenna is supposed to be
embedded into a carton box. A carton box is also
modeled in the simulation. The antenna can be
directly embedded into the carton, but for the

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convenience of design and test in the lab, we

attached the antenna on a paper first, and then insert
the paper inside the carton corrugated layers. The
paper substrate is about 100um thick.
The simulation results are illustrated in Figure 4.
The figure shows the return loss of the doublereflector antenna in the UHF band. The antenna has
a bandwidth of about 45 MHz from 895 MHz to 940
MHz, which covers the FCC RFID band from
902.25 MHz to 927.75 MHz.
860

870

880

890

900

910

920

930

940

950

The electric field intensity around the doublereflector antenna is shown in Figure 7. The field
strength decreases rapidly behind the reflector, so
the antenna suffers less influence from the metallic
materials that sit behind.

960

)B-2
d( -4
sso
L-6
rnu-8
te
R

Figure 7: Electric field intensity around the doublereflector antenna.

-10
-12
-14
Frequency (MHz)

Figure 4: Return loss of the double-reflector antenna.

The radiation pattern of double-reflector antenna
at 915 MHz in H-plane and E-plane is shown in
Figure 5 and Figure 6 respectively. The max gain is
achieved in the direction of =225 . The E-plane
along that direction is selected and shown in the
figure.

5.

FOLDED-DIRECTOR ANTENNA

The geometry of the folded director antenna is

shown in Figure 8. The antenna can be fabricated in
one flat layer and then bended along the folding line
when folded into the carton box. Although the
geometry is symmetric, the folding line (the red line
in Figure 8) is not necessarily along the symmetry
center, because the tag chip is mounted in the center
and has to be placed on one folding side. The
substrate is paper with 100um thickness.

Figure 8: Geometry of the folded-director antenna.

Figure 5: Radiation pattern in H-Plane of the doublereflector antenna.

The simulation results are illustrated in Figure 9

that shows the return loss of the double-reflector
antenna in the UHF band. The antenna has a
bandwidth of about 41 MHz from 892 MHz to 933
MHz, which also covers the FCC RFID band.
860

870

880

890

900

910

920

930

940

950

960

)B -5
d(
sso -10
L -15
rnu
te
R -20

Figure 6: Radiation pattern in E-Plane of the doublereflector antenna.

The radiation pattern demonstrates that the
antenna gain is enhanced to 5.39dBi in the direction
of =225 . The enhancement is 3.24dB compared
to the gain of a standard half-wave dipole (2.15dBi).

-25
-30
Frequency (MHz)

Figure 9: return loss of the folded-director antenna.

The radiation pattern of the folded-director
antenna at 915 MHz in H-plane and E-plane is

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shown in Figure 10 and Figure 11 respectively. The

H-plane is selected along =45 and =225 ,
while the E-plane is along =135 and =315 .

36 EIRPTx

20

Read Range(meters) = r 10

(1)

where r is the range in the setup in meters,

EIRPTx is the transmit EIRP in dBm.

Read range

Doublereflector tag

Foldeddirector tag

ALN-9540
tag

15.5m

15.6m

11.3m

Table 1: Read range of the tags.

7
Figure 10: Radiation pattern in H-Plane of the foldeddirector antenna.

Figure 11: Radiation pattern in E-Plane of the foldeddirector antenna.

The radiation pattern demonstrates that the
antenna gain is enhanced to 5.31dBi in the direction
of =180 . The enhancement is 3.16dB, as
compared to the gain of a standard dipole.
6

FIELD TEST RESULTS

Field tests are also performed to verify the

performance of the two antennas. The antenna
prototypes are fabricated with copper foil, the
Alien Higgs-2 straps are mounted directly on the
antennas. The tags are embedded inside a carton
box and folded with the methods described above.
In order to demonstrate the enhanced directivity
and gain, a commercial Aliens tag, ALN-9540 with
the same chip, is used as a reference [10]. The RFID
reader is a Impinj Speedway with a 6dBi circular
antenna ALR-9611-CR, also from Alien.
The reading distance of the double-reflector, the
folded-director, as well as the reference ALN-9540
tag is shown in Table 1. Because of the limited
space of the testing environment, the reading
distance tests are conducted under 27dBm EIRP of
transmitted power from the reader antenna. The
results are then extrapolated to 36dBm EIRP of
transmission power, as recommended by EPC test
methods [11], using the following equation.

CONCLUTION

In this paper, we proposed two new 3-D and

conformal RFID antennas that are specially
optimized for product packages containing RF nonfriendly contents. These antennas utilize the
parasitic elements to enhance the antenna gain in the
desired direction, or beam the antenna radiation to
the direction with less obstruction and shielding.
The dipole element, along with the parasitic
elements can be fabricated on the same substrate,
and embedded into package lamination layers.
When the package is folded, the elements are placed
on different sides to form a 3-D antenna. These
antennas will be the ideal solution for RFID itemlevel tagging applications.
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