Circularly Polarized Microstrip Antenna on Ultrathin PET Substrate for UHF RFID Applications

Design of a circularly polarized microstrip patch antenna on an ultrathin PET substrate of 125 μm thickness is proposed for RFID applications. Screen-printed silver coating of 25 μm thickness serves as the antenna metallization. Improved feed-design and systematic optimization of the antenna overcomes the intrinsic constrains of designing microstrip antennas on extremely thin substrate. Optimally designed feed excites a nearly square patch antenna with truncated corners to achieve good impedance and radiation characteristics. The proposed antenna exhibiting 48 MHz impedance bandwidth (896 MHz to 944 MHz) and a 16 MHz AR bandwidth (907-923 MHz), can serve as a potential candidate as a low cost UHF reader antenna for RFID applications.