Model based development of the digital part of a RFID transponder with xilinx system generator for a FPGA platform

For the development of an RFID system a flexible counterpart on the transponder side is necessary. On the system it must be possible to implement different standards and allow access to major interfaces of the processing chain of the tag. In the development of new RFID approaches a flexible platform close to the IC is necessary, thus an implementation on an FPGA is beneficial. A model-based approach allows the development of complex systems, starting with system simulation in Simulink/MATLAB in conjunction with additional Xilinx tools. The target bitfile is created from the System Generator toolbox for Simulink/MATLAB. A software defined radio platform based on a Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA was used as a target platform. A specific and well-tested framework is used to facilitate the integration process. The mandatory EPC specification parts of the digital portion of an UHF transponder are implemented and the FPGA performance is tested towards the initial Simulink/MATLAB simulation.