Wireless Power Transfer Link for RFID Telemetry System Applied to Laboratory Rodent Monitoring

Monitoring small animal to collect telemetry during their movement is a challenging task, as the body displacement tend to impact greatly the field distribution. A power transfer scheme based on complementary split ring resonator is demonstrated here for UHF RFID reader-tag link rodent telemetry application. It is shown that the operation of the tag is maintained in all the region of the cage where the animal can move. Thanks to an adequate ground plane, the wearable tag antenna is minimally effected by the presence of the biological tissues. The map of the efficiency along the cage surface was derived from multiple simulations and measurements. It results a minimum efficiency of an order of magnitude higher than required, and a maximum of 1.8% while the tag is worn by the animal.