Performance study of RFID tags placed on metallic cylinders

Designing an RFID tag and placing it at an appropriate position, are both strongly responsible for proper functioning of the tag. In this article we present a study on the performance of three different UHF RFID tags placed on metallic cylinders of different radii. One of them is printed dipole antenna, the second one is a commercial tag (Alien 9540-02 squiggle UHF RFID tag), and the third one is a tag specifically designed for use on metallic objects. The measured results show that a tag placed along the axis of cylinder performs better than the tag placed around the surface of cylinder.