Designing of RFID-Based Sensor Solution for Packaging Surveillance Applications

Abstract

In this work, a two-chip battery assisted Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based sensor platform is presented. The radio frequency communication interface is based on the EPC Gen 2 standard. A laboratory setup of the platform has been shown and characterized for a moisture content sensor application. The laboratory setup of the sensor platform has a reading range of 3.4 meters which is in comparison to commercial available Gen 2 tags. The laboratory platform has an average power consumption of 2.1 μW operating at 3 V, which together with a printed battery gives an estimated lifetime for data logging of several years. The proposed RFID platform provides a tradeoff between, communication performance, compatibility with international standards, and flexibility in on-package customization including type and number of sensors. The proposed architecture separates the high-performance communication circuit and the low-frequency sensor interface logic. In the future, the sensor interface maybe integrated using printed logics to further enhance the flexibility and low-cost customization features of the architecture.