Abstract
A novel quad-state coupled-line microstrip resonator is proposed for compact chipless radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The proposed resonator can be reconfigured to present one of four possible states: 00, 01, 10, and 11, representing, no resonance, resonance at f(2), resonance at f(1), and resonance at both f(1) and f(2), respectively. The frequency span between f(2) and f(1) can be easily controlled, thereby reducing the required spectrum. Moreover, the proposed technique allows the storage of a large amount of data in a compact size to reduce the cost per bit. A multi-resonator prototype consisting of six resonators is designed, analyzed, and experimentally characterized. This prototype is implemented on the RT Duroid 5880 substrate with a dielectric constant of 2.2, loss tangent of 0.0009, and thickness of 0.79 mm. The designed configuration can be reconfigured for 4(6) codes. Two complete the RFID tags, including the six resonators and two orthogonally polarized transmitting and receiving antennas, are implemented and tested. The first tag code is designed for all ones, 111111111111, and the second tag is designed as 101010101010 code. Experimental results show good agreement with the simulation.