Design of a 24 GHz analog frontend for an optically powered RFID transponder for the integration into metallic components

The fundamental construction of a 24 GHz optically powered Radio Frequency Identification transponder integrable into metallic objects is presented. A brief overview of the optical power supply considerations and the resulting constraints to the antenna design are discussed. The focus of this contribution is on the characterization of the analog RF frontend which has the dimensions of 5.7 mm × 5.2 mm. The communication from the reader to the transponder is a binary amplitude shift keying, thus an envelope detector is used for the demodulation. As power consumption is of major interest, the tag uses backscattering to transfer the data from the tag to the reader. The modulator is based on a low power high electron mobility transistor.