RFID Humidity Sensor Tag for Low-cost Applications

Abstract

This article presents a low-cost, flexible, chipless Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag for humidity monitoring applications. The tag exhibits moisture sensing feature within a compact geometrical dimension of 20mm x 17.6mm. The design is loaded with 12 resonators, where each resonator represents 1 bit in the frequency domain. For the designed 12-bit tag, 11 inverted C-shaped resonators are dedicated for encoding 11-bit information in their spectral signature. An integrated meandered-shaped resonator, covered with moisture sensitive Kapton® HN film, functions as a 1-bit moisture sensor. It is deployed for monitoring relative humidity (RH) levels, simultaneously. The passive RFID tag is realized on Taconic TLX-0 and has an operational bandwidth of 2.62 GHz. Furthermore, the design is modeled and analyzed for multiple substrates. The performance of the sensor tag for various humidity levels indicates that it is a potential solution for inexpensive sensing applications.