UHF RFID Technologies for Identification and Traceability

Introduction

Passive ultra high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) is an electronic tagging technology commercialized between 860 and 960 MHz that allows an object or person to be automatically identified at a distance of up to 10 m without a direct line-of-sight path using a radar-type radio wave exchange (Figure I.1). UHF is the dominant technology for supply chain management applications such as case and pallet tracking and returnable container identification. It is also widely used for real-time inventory, industrial automation, work-in-process tracking, asset management, forklift monitoring, personal identification (ID), vehicle access control, document security and authentication. There are numerous UHF standards, most notably ISO 18000-6 and EPCglobal Gen 2, which are the most widely supported RFID standards nowadays.

Figure I.1. Functional principle of a UHF RFID communication. Inlay attached to the item: substrate film onto which the antenna and the chip containing item data are combined. Radio frequency emitted by the reader installed on a gate, a cashier counter, etc. The tag sends the data in response to the radio frequency (backscattering modulation). ...