Simulation and measurement of a long-range passive RFID system focused on reader architecture and backscattering communication

With passive tags achieving longer read ranges, the design of a proper long-range RFID reader has become a challenging issue. A complete long-range passive RFID system, focused on the backscattering tag-to-reader communication and the reader architecture, is presented in this paper. Main reader design constraints are discussed. Guidelines to design a PSK backscatter modulator are also given. The system is not only simulated, but also fabricated and measured. Thus, both the designed reader architecture and the simulation tool are validated. A read range of 10.6m with only an 11° phase difference has been measured.