Impedance Improvement with Curved Multilayer

Strip Dipole Antenna for RFID Tag

Charinsak Saetiaw1, Saksit Summart2 and Chanchai Thongsopa3
1
Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Rajamangala University of Technology Isan
Khon Kaen Campus, Thailand
2
Department of Computer Technology, North Eastern Technological College, Thailand
3
School of Telecommunication Engineering, Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand
Email : charinsak.sa@rmuti.ac.th1, ton_3555@hotmail.com2, chan@sut.ac.th3

Abstract— This paper presents the impedance improvement
technique by stacking a flexible copper-clad laminate. The
designed Multilayer Strip Dipole antenna worked well with
curved objects like cylindrical. While curving on an object,
antenna lengths will change a relative length in each layer within
stacking flexible copper-clad laminate. Curving of the designed
antenna extended length of each layer within the antenna , and
then affected an impedance of antenna to be automatically
adjustable. At the mean time, an extended length of the antenna
resulted in antena’s impedance improvement to become more
stable for frequency response. The Multilayer Strip Dipole
antenna is designed for Thailand UHF RFID applications that
operate on 920 MHz.
Keywords— Multilayer Strip Dipole Antenna; RFID;
I. INTRODUCTION
Presently, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), a brand
new technology to replace former barcode technology, has
been widely found with various application, including, in
logistics system, object tracking system and human
monitoring even on electronic banking [1]. RFID is an
excellent technology implemented to replace the existing
barcode technology because of its beneficial characteristics
regarding a greater reading distance, faster reading speed as
well as more data storage capability. RFID systems consists of
two key components: reader module and tag. A reader module
transmitted radio signal within its wireless range to initiate
power transfered to the tag and to search for the information
contained in the tag. After that, the tag will send the
information back to the reader module. The operating range
and power transferring efficiency are directly depended on the
performance of both reader module and tag antennas,
especially on tags antenna matching condition.
At the same time, diffent types and various shapes of
RFID tag significantly depend on operation ranges. A long
range system is operated, using electromagnetic waves in
ultra-high frequency (UHF) and microwave range.
For UHF RFID, the tag antenna can be created by printing
in special ink onto flexible substrates (or the so-called inlays).
Accordingly, this kind of the tag antenna has been affected by
various distortions when being applied on curved surfaces. In
addition, this variation in the structure also affects of the RFID
tag's antenna property and antenna impedance changes.
Moreover, it creates mismatch condition resulting on the
degradation performance in the RFID system [2, 3].
A new technique of antenna design covers several
requirements. Especially, it is appropriate for different types
of surface in which an antenna tunes itself by changing some
properties depending on different environments as shown in
[4,5]. This new technique of stacking layer namely Multilayer
antenna has been analyzed by reflection coefficient and
frequency response. However, to design RFID tag, the
impedance of the antenna that possibly matches with an
impedance of RFID IC should be considered.
This paper intends to present a tag antenna operated in the
UHF frequency for an industrial, scientific- medical (ISM)
band around 920MHz. A design of Multilayer Strip Dipole
antenna is demonstrated for an analysis of impedance stability
toward different sizes of the curved surface. However, the tag
RFID is basically used as strip dipole antenna [6,7].
Practically, strip dipole antenna property and efficiency,
including impedance and resonance frequency will be changed
relating to objects’ surfaces in which it is applied on such as
curved surfaces [2]. Curving makes effective length changed,
and affected to impedance of antenna and resonace frequency
as well. A flexible material structure for stacking on layer by
layer is called Multilayer. This multilayer has more impedance
stability than single-layer, therefore multilayer is suitable for
RFID applications. The designed Multilayer Strip Dipole
antenna will reduce the possible effects from antenna curving.
Effects on the relative length on each layer within the antenna
are different. So far, changablity of length will improve an
impedance of the antenna with more efficiency comparing to
modern antenna. The simulation result of curving the RFID
tag antenna using a Multilayer Strip Dipole antenna is
discussed.
This paper is prepared as follows. The first section is an
introduction of UHF RFID tag's antenna as already mentioned
above. The second section is the structural design along with
discussion on single-layer strip dipole antenna and Multilayer
Strip Dipole antenna. Next, an impedance of the curved
antenna in various radiuses and different types of antenna is
presented as a result of simulations. Then, measurement
results from prototypes of the single-layer, three-layer and
five-layer antennas with flat and curved surfaces are
demonstrated. The last section is the conclusion of the paper.

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 II. MULTILAYER STRIP DIPOLE ANTENNA the copper layer ( TCm ) where m is the number of layers.
In this section, a short review of strip dipole antenna Otherwise, a radius of copper layer ( RCm ) can be used as a
model and design is given. Then, the design of Multilayer radius of curved on each layer ( Rm ). So, we can calculate an
Strip Dipole antenna with the effect of curving antenna is
extended length of five-layer strip dipole antenna for each
discussed. The strip dipole antenna was designed with two
strips or small patches of equal length lying on the same axis. layer by (2) [5].
These two strips are separated by a gap. The key factor There are several types of substrate and material generally
used for RFID antenna. For our design, a Pyralux AP9121R of
influencing frequency is the length of the antenna. The half
DuPont is selected [8]. Its copper clad thickness, dielectric
wave length is then used for this purpose. The input
constant and dielectric thickness are 0.035 millimeters, 3.4 and
impedance of a strip dipole antenna can be calculated by
0.051 millimeters, respectively.
simulation software assessing the data through full wave
analysis techniques like the method of moments (MoM) or the
finite integration technique (FIT). So, the strip dipole antenna
length relates to their frequency designed, and it is capable of
calcuating the input impedance.
The major factor for determining the frequency is the
length of the antenna. On the other hand, the effective length
( Leff ) of Multilayer Strip Dipole antenna can be calculated
when it is curved as reported in [4]. a) Five-layer straight
Figure 1 shows a single-layer of flexible copper-clad
laminate strip antenna. For Multilayer Strip Dipole antennas, a
five-layer strip dipole antennas is chosen to demonstrate how
to calculate the effective length as shown in Figure 2. The
effective length written as

⎧L11 +ΔL1 + T1 + L22 +ΔL2 + T2 + L32 ⎫

Leff = 2* ⎨ ⎬ (1)
⎩+ΔL3 + T3 + L42 +ΔL4 + T4 + L52 ⎭

Where
b) Five-layer curved
T1 L21 TL
ΔL1 = , ΔL2 = 2 31 Fig. 2. Five-layer strip dipole antenna schematic.
RC 2 RC 3
(2)
TL TL
ΔL3 = 3 41 , ΔL4 = 4 51 TABLE I. THE DIMENSION PARAMETERS OF MULTILAYER STRIP DIPOLE
RC 4 RC 5 ANTENNA (UNIT: MILLIMETER(S)).

Parameter Name Antenna Type

Single-layer Three-layer Five-layer
W 10.00 10.00 10.00
TC1–C5 0.035 0.035 0.035
TS1-S5 0.051 0.051 0.051
G 1.00 1.00 1.00
O1-4 0.00 5.00 5.00
a) Straight L11 81.25* 15.00 15.00
L21 15.00 15.00
L22 10.00 10.00
L31 25.00 25.00
L32 56.25* 10.00
L41 35.00
L42 10.00
L51 45.00
L52 36.25*
*optimize value of simulation at 920MHz
b) Curved
Fig. 1. Schematic of single-layer strip dipole antenna design with flexible III. SIMULATION RESULTS
copper-clad laminate.
Figure 3 presents the Multilayer Strip Dipole antenna
Thickness of each layer can be calculated from the total model simulated by CST-Microwave Studio [9]. The antenna
thickness of flexible copper-clad laminate ( Tm ) that equals is curved within the XZ-plane and laid on XY-plane. The
comparable result found that only one parameter changed
thickness of dielectric substrate ( TSm ) plus the thickness of
when the other was fixed. By the way, the strip width was
most affected for the frequency bandwidth [10]. However,

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 strip width is around 16.3 millimeters less than 0.05 lambdas
for a strip dipole, for operation frequency at 920MHz.
According to simulation and optimization results, a proper size
of a strip width is adjusted to be 10 millimeters with enough
bandwidth covering UHF-RFID standard (850 to 960MHz).
Otherwise, this design will not be affected by the overlap
length ( Om ), and the optimum length will be changed
depending on the simulation result to provide frequency
response at 920 MHz. The other lengths of all sections are
shown in Table I, where antenna types are a single-layer,
three-layer and five-layer strip dipole antenna, respectively.
is reduced to make the angle of the center circle increased. So,
the greater the angle at the center represents the greater
curvature.
However, the simulation is used for changing the angle at
the center of the circle represents the ratio of curvature. It
provides ease of comparison. We can calculate the radius of
bending curvature to model an antenna; this is relative to the
angle of curvature by equation (5) when determining the
length of the antenna as a half wavelength. The calucation of
the curvature and radius of curvature values is resulted in
Table II.

TABLE II. CURVING RATIO AND ACTUAL CURVING RADIUS

Curved angle (degree) Actual curved radius (millimeter)
30 286
60 143
90 95
a) Single-layer strip dipole antenna b) Three-layer strip dipole antenna
120 71
150 57

TABLE III. IMPEDANCE OF STRIP DIPOLE ANTENNA WITH DIFFERENT

CURVED ANGLE FROM SIMULATION RESULTS

Curved Impedance (ohm)

c) Five-layer strip dipole antenna angle Single-layer Three-layer Five-layer
(degree) Z |Z| Z |Z| Z |Z|
Fig. 3. Multilayer Strip Dipole antenna schematic. 30 65.16 67.55 65.76 67.51 65.48- 66.94
-j17.81 -j15.29 j13.93
60 65.83 67.10 67.12 67.84 67.28- 67.85
-j13.02 -j9.87 j8.82
90 62.60 63.61 63.12 63.67 65.73- 65.96
-j11.32 -j8.41 j5.56
120 60.57 61.17 60.53 60.78 61.68- 61.77
-j8.60 -j5.52 j3.41
150 53.50 53.91 55.06 55.28 55.15- 55.24
-j6.71 -j5.02 j3.27
Δ Z / Δθ -0.1136 -0.1019 -0.0975

a) Kc less b) Kc more
Fig. 4. The diagram shows a comparison of the ratio of the arc to the arc
The impedance of antennas from simulation with different
length and radius of a circle with central angle circle. curved angles is shown in Table III. For single-layer strip
dipole antenna, the input impedance is changed to 65.16-
j17.81, 65.83-j13.02, 62.60-j11.32, 60.57-j8.60 and 53.50-
From Figure 4, consideration curvature value of antenna j6.71 when curving with 30, 60, 90, 120 and 150 curved
on cylindrical surface as function of radius as angles, respectively. Absolute input impedance is calucated
that is 67.55, 67.10 , 63.61 , 61.17 and 53.91. From the
θ absolute impedance, the average of the input impedance
Lant = 2π r (3) changes compared to curved angle is -0.1106. In the same
360
way, it can be summarized that the input impedance is resulted
We can consider the inverse ratio of the radius or from simulation of three-layer and five-layer strip dipole
curvature ( Kc ) as follows. antennas as in Table III. The differences of the absolute
impedance of single-layer, three-layer and five-layer are
13.64, 12.23 and 11.70 ohms, respectively. The average
Kc = 1/ r (4) difference of the absolute input impedance of single-layer
three-layer and five- layer strip dipole antenna is -0.1136 , -
The angle at the circle’s center is related to the ratio of the 0.1019 and -0.0975 ohms per degree, respectively. The
radius of curvature and written as. negative sign means the input impedance decreased when
curving increased more.
360 Lant 360 So, the most minimum change of absolute input impedance
θ = Kc Lant = (5) in difference curving angle is found with five-layer strip
2π r 2π
dipole antenna.
It can be seen that if the antenna length ( Lant ) or arc IV. MEASUREMENT RESULTS
length is constant then the arc angle at the center is inversely The prototype antennas were fabricated from Pyralux
proportional to the radius of the circle. The radius of the circle AP9121R of DuPont Pyralux® in which its all dimensions and

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 electrical properties are as same as the model in simulation
section. A HP8722D network analyzer is used for
measurement of input impedance and S11 results of antenna in
an anechoic chamber. However, to make a physical contact on
entire antenna, the edge of each layer will be flipped over and
bent backward for joining to another layer. Then, we were
fixed together by glue at the center of each layer. So, we have
a prototype antenna shown in Figure 5a. A balance-to-
unbalance transformer balun is used in order to be able to
measure the dipole antenna via coaxial cable. A folded balun
or quarter-wave coaxial balun is relatively easily constructed
[10]. We connected an SMA connector to this balun and
curved the antenna on different diameters of expanded
polystyrene (EPS) foam for measurement, as shown in Figure
5b-d [5]. The balun is not part of the strip dipole antenna, and
it can be considered as an external module used just for
measurement purposes.
a) Prototype b) Straight
c) θ = 60 d) θ = 120
Fig. 5. Prototype of Multilayer Strip Dipole antennas
respectively. The average values of the absolute input
impedance for single-layer, three-layer and five-layer strip
dipole antenna are -0.0998 , -0.1061 and -0.0917,
respectively. This result agrees with the simulation result that
five-layer strip dipole provides more improvement for the
change of antenna impedance due to antenna curving.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper presents an impedance improvement of strip
antenna when it curved with a novel Multilayer Strip Dipole
antenna using the stacking technique. The proposed antenna
uses flexible copper-clad laminate, which its flexibility is
advantageous for an application of RFID tags. The simulation
results reveales that impedance is improved when the
Multilayer Strip Dipole antenna is curved. A design of
antennas and the effects of curving varied by the impedance of
the antenna are presented. The results of simulation can be
implemented to design an appropriate and efficient antenna.
According to the simulation, the Multilayer Strip Dipole
antenna is more attractive than single-layer strip dipole
antenna because it performs higher stability of impedance
while being curved. In addition, the deviation of impedance
for the Multilayer Strip Dipole antenna when being curved is
less than single-layer strip dipole antenna with various curving
ratios.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors deeply appreciate for the supported from the
School of Telecommunication Engineering, Suranaree
University of Technology for a facility that used in this paper
and the Faculty of Engineering, Rajamangala University of
Technology Isan, Khon Kaen Campus for financial support.

TABLE IV. IMPEDANCE OF STRIP DIPOLE ANTENNA WITH DIFFERENT REFERENCES

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