UHF RFID Tag Antenna-based Sensing for Non-destructive Monitoring of Frozen Meat Using the RSSI

In cold chain logistics (CCL), the condition of frozen meat products must be tightly controlled to ensure their quality and safety to the consumers. The current methods of sensing and monitoring meat products are destructive, expensive, and without tracing capabilities. Therefore, a wireless, passive, and cost-effective sensing method is desired to perform both tracing and monitoring. This work investigates the use of UHF RFID system performing antenna-based sensing for monitoring frozen meat using the received signal strength indicator (RSSI). A commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) UHF RFID reader is programmed to acquire the RSSI data throughout 902–926 MHz band. RSSI data from an RFID inlay tag antenna attached to a frozen meat sample is collected for 20 to 30 minutes. By experimenting, we have found relationships between the acquired RSSI data and the temperature and hardness conditions of the defrosting frozen meat. The results signify that the RSSI data have monotonic but nonlinear relationships with the temperature and hardness of the meat sample. During the meat defrosting process, the RSSI decreases with the increasing temperature and the decreasing hardness. Therefore, antenna-based sensing using RFID RSSI data can indicate the variation of frozen meat temperature and hardness, which helps monitor conditional variations in the CCL.