Characterization of Inkjet-Printing HF and UHF antennas for RFID applications

The aim of this work was to perform a set of RFID antennas on flexible plastic substrates designed for range of HF and UHF band. The samples was fabricated using inkjet printing technology and conductive material base on silver nanopartilces ink. Fabricated antennas have been characterized, and the results were compared with the parameters of antennas made with usage of classical PCB technology on FR4 laminate with copper metallization. The paper presents studies on the impact of elastic substrates and conductive materials on antennas electrical parameters, as well as the communication range of the resulting RFID tags. During the experiment two patterns of HF and three patterns of UHF antennas was examined and the antennas was realized on different types of substrates, such as PET, Kapton (R) and FR4.