DESIGN OF BROADBAND CIRCULARLY POLARIZED SQUARE SLOT ANTENNA FOR UHF RFID APPLICATIONS

Abstract

A novel circularly polarized (CP) square slot antenna for covering the universal ultrahighfrequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) band is proposed. The antenna uses low-cost FR4 material as the dielectric substrate and coplanar waveguide (CPW) to feed. Circularly polarized radiation can be realized by embedding two symmetrical rectangular grounded planes with L-shaped slits in opposite corners of the square slot. The widened vertical tuning stub at the end of the signal line fed by CPW can improve the CP and impedance matching operation, and finally realizes broadband characteristic. The measured 10 dB impedance bandwidth and 3dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth are 1250 MHz (710–1960 MHz) and 180 MHz (840–1020 MHz), respectively. The measured peak gain is about 3.4 dBi in the whole UHF RFID frequency band (0.84–0.96 GHz). The dimension of the CP square slot antenna is 116 × 116 × 1.6 mm3. The proposed antenna has the advantage of simple structure, is easy to be processed, can exhibit dual CP radiation characteristic, and covers the broadband frequency range, which can be applied to the UHF RFID handheld reader environment.