Characteristics of a Metal-Backed Loop Antenna and its Application to a High-Frequency RFID Smart Shelf

In this paper, a metal-backed loop antenna (MBLA) at high frequency (HF) is characterized and applied to a radio-frequency identification (RFID) smart-shelf system. The antenna is investigated in terms of impedance matching, resonant frequency, magnetic-field intensity/field distribution, quality factor, and detection range. The study shows that the magnetic-field distribution of the metal-backed loop antenna can be effectively controlled by changing the size as well as the separation of the backing metal plate. As a result, the detection range of an RFID system using such an antenna can be controlled. Such a feature offers great promise for the metal-backed loop antenna in applications for RFID smart-shelf systems. For such systems, controlling the coupling zone of the antennas is vital for constraining the interference between the antennas in adjacent tiers of the shelves, in order to achieve high system-detection accuracy. In addition, using a metal-backed loop antenna provides more flexibility for RFID smart-shelf-system design and implementation, so that the system is more cost effective.