Design of fully printable and configurable chipless RFID tag on flexible substrate

Abstract This article presents the design and implementation of a chipless radio frequency identification (RFID) tag on flexible substrate.The tag is designed based on the sympathetic oscillations of multiple LC (inductor–capacitor) circuits that possess distinct resonant frequencies. Information is encoded by controlling placement of these resonant frequencies. To trade off the readability and size of the tag, the optimizations including capacitor placements and different LC combinations are studied. The tag is then realized onto flexible polyimide substrate using toner‐transferring process. The detection system is also constructed and used to measure the proposed tag. The measurement results show that the tag can provide an excellent readability more than 20 cm reading range. In addition, this tag is fully printable and configurable, hence making it more feasible and considerably cheaper to be used. This tag can provide a meaningful approach toward the realization of ultralow‐cost RFID tags attached onto low‐value items. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 54:226–230, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26499