A low-power RFID enabled temperature sensor for cold chain management

In this paper we present a low-power semi-passive RFID enabled temperature sensor developed for cold chain management (perishable items, such as: food, vaccines and pharmaceuticals). The system is compliant with the standard ISO15693 for identification purposes and uses proprietary commands for temperature logging. The temperature operation range is from -40°C to 85°C being accurate to ±0.5°C, over the whole range, while consuming an average of 8.4μW when active. Special focus is given on the design of the temperature acquisition sub-system which integrates the sensor and the current mode dual slope ADC converter.