Energy Scavenging for Inductively Coupled Passive RFID Systems

Deployment of passive RFID systems or RFID-enhanced sensor networks requires good understanding of the energy scavenging principles. This paper focuses on the energy scavenging design considerations of inductively coupled passive RFID systems. The theoretical estimation of the power by an RF antenna is derived, and the effect of the design parameters on the harvested power is investigated. It is shown that the power delivery performance is largely affected by the tag load at the reader. An adaptive matching circuit at the reader is proposed for achieving optimum power delivery performance when the reader has a variable load. Experimental studies confirm analytical derivations.