Long Range Passive UHF RFID System Using HVAC Ducts

Pavel V. Nikitin, Darmindra D. Arumugam, Matthew J. Chabalko, Benjamin E. Henty, Daniel D. Stancil
2010 Proceedings of the IEEE  
To provide a potential communications channel, HVAC ducts can function as electromagnetic waveguides; a 30-m read range has been achieved within a free space range of 6 m. ABSTRACT | In this paper, the use of hollow metal heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) ducts as a potential communication channel between passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers and tags is studied. HVAC ducts behave as electromagnetic waveguides with much lower signal
more » ... uation compared to free-space propagation. This low-loss electromagnetic environment allows one to greatly increase the communication range of passive UHF RFID systems and build, for example, a long range passive sensor network spanning an entire infrastructure such as a large building. In this work, it is shown both theoretically and experimentally that the read range of passive UHF RFID systems can be increased by multiple times compared to operation in a free-space environment.
doi:10.1109/jproc.2010.2047821 fatcat:uszrjohzpzempp5arknra33dhu