Gains for RF tags using multiple antennas

Abstract

Backscatter radio systems, including high frequency radio frequency identification (RFID), operate in the dyadic backscatter channel - a two-way pinhole channel that has deeper small-scale fades than that of a conventional one-way channel. This paper shows that pinhole diversity is available in a rich scattering environment caused by modulating backscatter with multiple RF tag antennas - no diversity combining at the reader, channel knowledge, or signaling scheme change is required. Pinhole diversity, along with increased RF tag scattering aperture, can cause up to a 10 dB reduction in the power required to maintain a constant bit-error-rate for an RF tag with two antennas. Through examples, it is shown that this gain results in increased backscatter radio system communication reliability and up to a 78% increase in RF tag operating range.