High-Permittivity Ceramic Tags Miniaturization for Long-Range RFID Applications

Radio frequency identification (RFID) allows performing a remote readout of data from passive battery-free tags, interrogated with an active reader. Quite a few efforts, concentrating on antennas design, have been explored, pushing interrogating distances to tens of meters. Here we develop a new concept of miniature high-permittivity ceramic tags, capable to extend reading range quite substantially. Instead of using conduction currents in metallic wires to drive electronic chips and provide electromagnetic radiation, our approach relies on excitation of displacement currents in high-permittivity resonators. Practical aspects of this approach include improved robustness to environmental fluctuations, footprint reduction, and readout range extension. Our architecture is shown to perform reading range up to 19 meters, if state of the art electronic components is in use, having the smallest size among long-range RFID passive tags. Miniature RFID tags, capable to establish long-range communication channels, can find use in numerous applications.