A Novel Integrated UWB–UHF One-Port Antenna for Localization and Energy Harvesting

In this work, a novel, compact, single-port antenna combining both UWB and UHF bands is presented. This solution is proposed for next-generation passive RFID tags, performing communication and localization through UWB technology and efficient energy harvesting in the UHF band, but it is also designed to keep compatibility with previous tags generations. The UWB communication is deployed by means of an Archimedean spiral topology, while energy harvesting at UHF is obtained by suitably extending the spiral outer arms, thus realizing a meandered dipole, without affecting the UWB behavior. The single-port architecture provides an overall size reduction, while preserving the radiation performance in both the operating bands. This solution allows a direct connection to future integrated UWB-UHF chips, to standard RFID chips, or to a diplexer for suitably combining the UWB and the UHF functionalities. A prototype of this new antenna, realized on a standard FR-4 substrate, is first presented to validate the proposed novel design. As a second step, the same architecture is scaled on a paper substrate in view of its fully eco-compatible realization to be exploited by future pervasive RFID applications. The compact design of the antenna-feeding network in discrete technology is also presented.