Nowadays, as indoor localization is getting more popular, there is a growing need for reliable and accurate techniques of position determination. Recently, ultrawideband (UWB)-based systems are gaining popularity, since they make achieving positioning errors in the range of dozens of centimeters or even single centimeters, possible. The Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA)-based systems are especially attractive because they allow to simplify tags, in which functionality can be limited to transmission of packets. However, one of TDOA-based solution drawbacks is a need for strict synchronization between anchor nodes, which may be hard to provide in indoor environment. In the paper, a novel method for simplifying synchronization in TDOA-based UWB localization system is described. The paper presents two system architectures based on pairs of synchronized nodes. Results of simulations and experiments included in the article allow for evaluation of both solutions.

This work describes the design of a rectenna array exploiting orthogonal, closely-spaced UHF monopoles for orientation-independent RF energy harvesting to energize a passive tag, designed for UWB localization, with wake-up radio (WUR) capabilities. To reach this goal, different RF networks are studied to simultaneously realize RF decoupling of the antenna elements and matching of the radiating elements to the non-linear network of rectifiers. The design is performed for a wide power range of the RF incoming signals that need to be exploited for both energizing the passive tag and for providing energy autonomy to a WUR sub-system, used to minimize the long-term power consumption during tag standby operations. Two meandered cross-polarized monopoles, located in close proximity, and thus highly coupled, are adopted for orientation-insensitive operations. The combining RF network is reactive and includes an unbalanced power divider to draw a fraction of the harvested energy to a secondary way for WUR operations. The performance of the harvester is first optimized by EM/non-linear co-design of the whole system over an interval of low RF power levels. The system has been realized and experimentally validated: the superior results obtained, in terms of both dc voltage and power, with respect to a standard single-monopole rectenna, justify the deployment of the presented tag for the energy autonomy of future generation radio-frequency identification tags for indoor localization.

Wireless sensor networks are an increasingly popular tool for monitoring various environmental parameters. They can also be used for monitoring the electromagnetic spectrum. Wireless sensors, due to their small size, typically have simplified radio receivers with reduced sensitivity and use small antennas. As a result, their effective performance area is similarly limited. This is especially important in urban areas where there are various kinds of adverse propagation phenomena related to area coverage. The aim of this paper is to present the phenomena in the wireless sensor networks and propose criteria and methods to optimize their deployment to ensure maximizing the probability of detection of emissions, minimization of unmonitored areas, and to provide the necessary hardware redundancy in the priority areas. Influence of detection parameters, number of sensors and range constraints between sensors on received outcomes are also presented.

In this study, we investigate a concept that can be used to improve the magnetic field homogeneity in a microwave cavity applied in a novel, high-performance atomic frequency standard. We show that by modifying the boundary conditions in the case of a loop-gap geometry, a good improvement of the field homogeneity can be obtained. Such a design demonstrates high potential to improve the frequency stability; it is compact and hence suitable for a future generation of compact, high-precision frequency standards based on vapor cells and a pulsed optical pumping (POP) regime (POP atomic clocks).

In this paper, some theoretical aspects and experimental results are discussed with the aim to provide supplementary dc energy to radio frequency identification (RFID) tags by exploiting the nonlinear nature of rectifier devices. Three nonlinear phenomena are treated: (i) the impedance power dependence, (ii) the harmonic production, and (iii) the dependence on the radio frequency waveform. The novelty of the work relies on proposing a double rectifier composite system in where the nonlinearity of each rectifier is exploited to enhance the global powering performance of the system. Using the passive RFID technology as a beacon for the implementation, the approach considers combining the internal rectifier circuit of a commercial RFID chip operating at 868 MHz with an external rectifier circuit operating at 2.17 GHz. The solution triggers in a composite system RFID tag-harvester integrated in a single-feed dual-band antenna. The experimental validation shows 5 dB of tag sensitivity enhancement when it is empowered by the external harvester. The enhanced sensitivity produces an increase in the theoretical reading range distance from 3.3 to 6.1 m.

In this paper, an amplitude shift keying (ASK) demodulator with 100% modulation depth is proposed. In order to achieve the higher power and wider reading range the designed ASK demodulator works in the ultra-high frequency. In this design, the average detector and voltage divider are used in order to define the appropriate threshold voltage level for the radio frequency input signal which leads to the accurate data detecting even at long distances between the tag and reader. In addition, for diminishing the power dissipation of the proposed demodulator, an enable input is used in the buffer and comparator. This circuit is simulated in 0.18 μm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology with Cadence software. Its power dissipation and chip area are 3.9 nW and 0.0025 mm2, respectively.

In this paper, new planar spiral antennas with meander lines and loads for passive Radiofrequency identification tag application at ultra-high-frequency band are designed and optimized using the global best (gbest)-guided Artificial Bee Colony (GABC) algorithm. The GABC is an improved Artificial Bee Colony algorithm, which includes gbest solution information into the search equation to improve the exploitation. The optimization goals are antenna size minimization, gain maximization, and conjugate matching. The antenna dimensions were optimized and evaluated in conjunction with commercial software FEKO. GABC is compared with other popular algorithms. The optimization results produced show that GABC is a powerful optimization algorithm that can be efficiently applied to tag antenna design problems.

This paper discusses novel methodologies for the characterization of harmonic signals generated by wireless powered devices, i.e. passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, due to the wireless power transferred from reader to tag. Theoretical aspects, as well as measurements to characterize these non-linear phenomena are exposed. Particular care is taken to explain the analysis methodology and setup for two kinds of characterization measurements: radiated and conducted. The existence of harmonic signals carrying information is exploited in an advanced application example. A dual-band RFID tag is designed to increase the backscattered harmonic level in the tag-to-reader link. Measurement of this dual band tag demonstrates the exploitation of the hitherto neglected harmonic power; it also opens the door to more advanced applications exploiting the harmonic-link communication.

A channel estimation method for chipless wireless sensors is presented. The method is developed to suppress interference signals in radio frequency backscatter systems. It uses two adjacent frequency bands to estimate and suppress the disturbing signal of a dynamic interferer. Afterwards a correction of the sensor tag's backscatter signal is achieved. The method has been tested in indoor measurements with a chipless strain sensor and a chipless temperature sensor. A metal block has been deployed as an interferer. In the given scenario, the method has enabled a determination of the sensors' resonance frequencies with relative errors of <2% in average. A general dependence of the estimation robustness on the peak bandwidth is observed.

This paper presents a new approach for improving the localization of passive ultra high frequency radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in line-of-sight channels using a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) technique. In practice, the complex propagation in the indoor channels and also the variability of some parameters of the RFID equipment itself introduces significant amount of errors when the operation of localization carries out the RSSI technique. Indeed, as the calculation is based on a trilateration, the incomplete knowledge of the propagation and some parameters of RFID tags leads to estimate distances which are wrong, and therefore the localization cannot be correct. In order to overcome this drawback, the proposed method takes into account the presence of unknown parameters relying on a dichotomous algorithm which includes probabilistic parameters. The presented simulation results are in good agreement with the expected theoretical results. Experimental results show that the proposed method strongly increases the accuracy of the estimated position of tags. Compared to other approaches based on the improvement of the RSSI technique, this method does not require too much complexity in terms of materials (no need for specific architecture or reference tags) and processing (fast and simple algorithm).

This paper presents a hybrid antenna design for an optically powered super high frequency (SHF) radio frequency identification transponder applicable for the integration into metal. The key feature of the antenna is its ability to receive microwave signals at SHF for data communication and optical signals for the power supply of the transponder. The antenna design is based on a circular waveguide which is filled with a bundle of polymer optical fibers to guide light to the photodiodes. In addition, a transition is placed within the circular waveguide to transfer the waveguide mode of the SHF signal into a microstrip mode which is a more suitable structure for the integration of electronic transponder components. This paper discusses the constraints and solutions for the aforementioned combination of SHF microwave and light. The figures of merit of the optical power supply are presented, including considerations of the light distribution and the obtained power as a function of the incident angle and the used polymer optical fiber diameter. Furthermore, the measured gain and return loss of the SHF antenna structure is compared to the simulated results.

In this paper, a new methodology to compare the robustness of sensor structures employed in radiofrequency design for test (RF DFT) architectures for RF integrated circuits (ICs) is proposed. First, the yield loss and defect level of the test technique is evaluated using a statistical model of the Circuit under Test (obtained through non-parametric statistics and copula theory). Then, by carrying out the dispersion analysis of the sensor architecture, a figure of merit is established. This methodology reduces the number of iterations in the design flow of RF DFT sensors and makes it possible to evaluate process dispersion. The case study is a SiGe:C BiCMOS LNA tested by a single-probe measurement.