The Harmonic Tunneling Tag: a Dual-Band Approach to Backscattering Communications

Francesco Amato (1) , Simon Hemour (2)

1 Pervasive Electromagnetic Lab, Department of Civil and Computer Science Engineering
2 IMS - Laboratoire de l'intégration, du matériau au système

As an answer to the self-interference problem inherent to RFID systems, this work proposes a dual-band backscat-tering architecture. A dual-band RFID system architecture can bring several advantages to the RFID technology. In fact, a dual-band reader could operate without any self-interference cancellation circuit that currently limits its sensitivity; moreover, its dual-band architecture would be compatible with software defined radio-based cellphones. Dual-band readers will need to talk with low-powered dual-band tags that up-convert, modulate, and backscatter the impinging signal from the fundamental frequency to the 2 nd harmonic without weakening the communication link. This article reports on the UHF dual-band Harmonic Tun-neling Tag capable of backscattering and amplifying a 900 MHz signal when receiving an input carrier at 450 MHz. The Harmonic Tunneling Tag provides positive conversion gains (+7 dB) that improve the communication link by a factor of 2 and operates under a very low bias voltage of 0.16 V.

Mots clés: Index Terms-RFID; backscattering; tunnel diode; tunneling tag; reflection amplifier; harmonic tunneling tag; 5G; dual-band; UHF

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Francesco Amato, Simon Hemour. The Harmonic Tunneling Tag: a Dual-Band Approach to Backscattering Communications. 2019 IEEE International Conference on RFID Technology and Applications (RFID-TA), Sep 2019, Pisa, Italy. ⟨hal-02311456⟩