Hospitals, Logistics, Automotive,… RAIN RFID is Everywhere – A look into RFID Research in 2022

Jan 03, 2023

About the author

I am Sales Director at Voyantic. I have over 15 years of experience from the RFID industry in Europe and the USA. I have two master's degrees: in industrial engineering and in marketing, and two patents in auto-ID technology. I am actively participating in RAIN RFID alliance activities.

Content

It’s a new year and, again, a time to take a look at what’s been published in RFID research in the past year. I have done these yearly recaps a few times now (see posts from Jan 2022 here and from Feb 2021 here) as looking at the research field gives a good indication of what might become available for business applications in the coming years.

Numerous RFID-related themes and topics were researched in 2022. Some popular themes were again sensor tags and healthcare applications. The RFID industry has grown strongly and that growth may have boosted research topics that are very close to practical implementations.

Advances in RFID Sensing

Sensor tags continue to be a popular research theme within RFID. Temperature is the most popular physical property being measured. Temperature sensing is followed by humidity sensing and pressure sensing. RFID sensors are being studied, for example, in pharmaceutical and food logistics applications.

A paper by D. Masi; S. Amendola; N. D’Uva; C. Miozzi; G. M. Bianco; C. Occhiuzzi; G. Marrocco: Radio-pill: RFID miniaturized and battery-free humidity probe for pharmaceutical moisture analysis introduces a temperature and humidity sensing tag for monitoring conditions in pharmaceutical logistics.
A paper by B. Saggin; J. Podlecki; A. Vena; B. Sorli; F. Coffigniez; V. Guillard; S. Silvestre; C. Ramade: Food spoilage estimation using a sensing RFID tag demonstrates how an RFID tag can be used for indicating freshness status of packaged beef in food logistics.

RAIN RFID is used widely in tracking applications in logistics. Expanding the use of existing processes and infrastructure to also monitor freshness seems like a smart addition.

RFID sensing is not limited to the major physical properties. In 2022 many countries have seen energy prices soaring.

A publication from I Ullah; B Sanz-Izquierdo; J C Batchelor: Dual RFID Tag System for AC Current Sensing shows how RFID sensor tags can be used to measure domestic AC consumption.

RFID Sensing in Healthcare

Non-invasiveness of RFID is a driver of the study of healthcare applications. Researchers from University Tor Vergata have published studies of several applications such as:

F Lestini; N Panunzio; G Marrocco; C Occhiuzzi published research about using RFID tags to monitor skin temperature for avoiding skin burns on anti-cancer treatments using high-power electromagnetic fields: Design and Experimentation of an Epidermal RFID-based Thermal Monitoring Sheet (R-TMS) for Microwave Hyperthermia
C Miozzi, V Errico, G Saggio, G Marrocco demonstrate the possibility to use RFID as a wireless surface electromyography – a method for studying the health of muscles and related nerves: A Fully Integrated On-Skin RFID EMG Sensor

Research Assisting RAIN RFID Implementations

Some research papers are tightly connected to RFID implementations, solving practical problems that have occurred.

M Grabia; T Markowski developed a chamber and method to reliably identify a large number of packages of various sizes and mixed content at Poland postal operator: A chamber for stocktaking of courier parcels in a dense environment
H Knapp and D Uckelmann published research helping RFID installations in the automotive industry: A literature review on sources of interference and proposed solutions for RFID installations in complex production and logistics processes in the automotive industry
Y He and M Podlesny introduce a method for extending RFID read range in applications where the material is between a tag and a reader, such as monitoring underground pipes for detecting corrosion or leakage: Dielectric Waveguide Filled with Particulate Media for Ultrahigh Frequency (UHF) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Applications

RFID could be used to monitor underground pipes for corrosion and leakage.

The Voyantic Tagformance system with anechoic chambers has been used as a measurement and testing tool in many of the RFID research projects. Publications of several RFID research projects utilizing the Voyantic Tagformance system can be found at Google Scholar. Stable and purpose-built RF test conditions ensure reliable results in academic and commercial research projects.

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Sensing Tattoo, Cyber Tooth and Check Your Own Brain – Review of RAIN RFID Research in 2021

Feb 24, 2022

About the author

Teemu Ainasoja

Content

In 2021, RFID with sensing technologies continued to be a major research area. The COVID-19 pandemic was also seen in RFID research topics.

Plenty of interesting research papers were published and, unfortunately, I can only introduce a very limited selection of the research topics.

Sensor tags – sci-fi brought to reality

RFID combined with sensing continues to be the overwhelmingly most common broad research area in RFID. But research has clearly moved beyond the traditional sensor tags. Some of the described ideas and methods seemed more like sci-fi than science.

Sensing Covid-19

Covid-19 has inspired some research papers, and practical RFID-based solutions are being developed to help in fighting the pandemic.

A method is introduced for monitoring facemask filtering capability: Sensorized facemask with moisture-sensitive RFID antenna
Another timely paper introduces use of RFID tags in monitoring decease agents by detecting their physical and chemical fingerprints: A Plug&Play flexible skin sensor for the wireless monitoring of pandemics

Masks’ wetness can reduce their filtering capabilities. Do RFID-based sensors offer a solution?

Monitoring structures and machinery

Measuring and monitoring the condition of structures and equipment was another topic area for RFID research last year.

A method is introduced for detecting surface cracks. It is aimed for monitoring the integrity of large structures: Passive Wireless Dual-Tag UHF RFID Sensor System for Surface Crack Monitoring
Another paper experiments with aluminum structure crack detection and characterization: Passive Ultra High-Frequency RFID sensor with reference tag for crack detection of aluminum alloy structure
This paper introduces a method for monitoring the condition of chemical industry equipment with the help of RFID: RFID based Predictive Maintenance System for Chemical Industry

RFID could be used for the early detection of building surface cracks.

RFID sensors in medical applications

Combining RFID, sensors and medical diagnostics pushes biomedical sciences to a new level.

Aging can cause micro-cracks in implanted prostheses. A paper titled “A Fractal-RFID Based Sensing Tattoo for the Early Detection of Cracks in Implanted Metal Prostheses” introduces a method that uses RFID IC, a space-filling curve antenna, and backscattering to detect the microfractures before harm is done.
This paper introduces an alternative method for time-consuming X-rays, MRI scans, and CT scans for detecting deeply hiding infections that are a common thread with implants: Antennifying orthopedic bone-plate fixtures for the wireless monitoring of local deep infections
Another method for early identification of inflammations is introduced in this paper: “Cyber-Tooth: Antennified Dental Implant for RFID Wireless Temperature Monitoring”. In the method the entire dental implants crown is transformed into a dipole antenna. Is this a first step to realize Lucy’s (from I Love Lucy) radio in a tooth?

A doctoral thesis, titled “Far-Field Backscattering Brain Implant Communications: Antenna Design Methodologies and Performance Validation”, gives a broad view on advances using RFID in monitoring brain activity. Will heartbeat monitoring watches and sleep monitoring rings be followed by brain monitoring for everyone?

Wearable tags, miniaturization and hard to tag items

Textile, yarn, and wearable RFID continue to be another common research topic.

This paper introduces graphene-based antenna in NFC tags that are used close to the human body – for example in transportation tickets and key fobs: Wearable near‐field communication bracelet based on highly conductive graphene‐assembled films
A method for improving the production of RFID in textiles is proposed in this research: “Textronic UHF RFID Transponder”. In the proposed method a small dipole antenna couples with an RFID IC without galvanic connection.

The stretching of fabrics is an issue for common RFID tag antenna designs. This paper introduces a way to create stretchable antennas suitable for textiles: Stretchable Textile Yarn Based on UHF RFID Helical Tag.

There are also several papers published around the topic of making ever smaller tags with higher read ranges, and using them to tag, for example, metallic objects:

Machine learning and Blockchain

Machine learning and Blockchain combined with RFID are rising research areas.

Making Assembly Line in Supply Chain Robust and Secure Using UHF RFID and Blockchain introduces a Blockchain-based secure supply chain for bottled consumer products.
This paper introduces how changes in RSSI of an RFID tag can be detected, and how a reading system can be taught to identify contaminated food using the changes in RSSI. Machine Learning Enabled Food Contamination Detection Using RFID and Internet of Things System

Voyantic Tagformance

Voyantic Tagformance® system is widely used in RFID and NFC research. Read more or book a demo to learn more.

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RFID Journal Live in Phoenix – The New Exciting Stuff Was in IEEE RFID

Jun 02, 2017

About the author

Jukka Voutilainen

I am the CEO and co-founder of Voyantic, a company that specializes in RFID test and measurement solutions. Before starting Voyantic in 2004, I worked as a researcher at the Helsinki University of Technology focusing on passive RFID sensing for moisture in building structures.

Content

中文版 Chinese version

This year’s RFID Journal Live! was arranged in Phoenix, AZ three weeks ago. I have been scanning through different reports about the show, and they all seem to amplify my own perception: the overall business was good, things are moving forward, but there was nothing particularly new and exciting this time. Sure, the inventory robots were still there, readers are integrating with antennas, and some new chips were announced, but that’s about it.

So, instead of writing about Journal Live!, this year I am focusing my show report on a co-located event that always delivers something new, the IEEE RFID conference. The conference was arranged for the 11th time, and I think I have only missed it once – though often I have had to divide my time between IEEE and the trade show.

The conference featured two excellent key-note presentations: Secure RFID for Trusting Devices and Data by René Martinez of Honeywell and Near-Zero Power Radio Frequency Receivers by Troy Olsson of DARPA. And then there were a total of 32 technical papers presented. Most papers were accepted in these categories:

Localization
Protocols and Security
Antennas and Propagation
Circuits, Devices and Readers

So, it seems that localization is on the rise, as the category has reached the top from outside the top-5 of 2016 event. I haven’t really seen asset localization properly break through in the industry, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did in the near future.

Poster Session

During the last few years, IEEE RFID has arranged a poster session in the RFID Journal Live! exhibition area. So, if you do one thing to learn about what is going on in the research space, I recommend browsing through the poster area. In just half an hour you will get a nice overview of the latest research related to circuits, protocols, antennas, chipless sensors, etc. This year, there were a total of 25 posters from universities around the world, but also one from the industry: the French company Primo1D had a poster about their RFID yarn. A full list of poster titles can be found here.

This year, I was privileged to be a member of an expert panel that was assigned to choose the best poster. It took us two hours of looking through the posters, interviewing the presenters, and discussing, until we were able to decide the winner:

“A Dual-Band Wireless Power Transfer and Backscatter Communication Approach for Implantable Neuroprosthetic Devices” by Eleftherios Kampianakis and Apoorva Sharma (University of Washington, USA); Jose Arenas (University of Washington, Chile); Matthew Reynolds (University of Washington, USA).

The presented research combines UHF and HF RFID, as well as many disciplines of electronics and RF engineering into an implantable neuroprosthetic testbed. A more detailed description can be found here.

Best Paper Award

This year’s best paper award went to Pavel Nikitin of Honeywell for his paper titled ‘Self-Reconfigurable RFID Reader Antenna’. The paper presents a method for varying the beam of an antenna. The method is presented with a two-element Yagi antenna, where the parasitic element is loaded with a self-oscillating circuit. The ability to change the reader beam could be especially useful when inventorying static tag populations, e.g. when using an overhead reader to inventory a retail store.

But what pleased me most, was that some of the measurement data in Pavel’s paper was generated with the Voyantic Tagformance Pro system. Let me explain why.

This is me and my colleague Jesse back in 2006, sitting in front of the very first Tagformance prototype. We had just left our jobs at the university, and were frantically trying to build a system for testing the performance of UHF RFID tags. I spent hours of trying to understand papers written by Pavel Nikitin – then only a name to me. And we were able to pull it off: we got our system out to the market for RFID World 2007 which, by the way, was co-located with the very first IEEE RFID conference. Now, seeing our system used in one of Pavel’s papers 11 years later feels like the circle is closed.

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