Interference Reduction Scheme for UHF Passive RFID Systems Using Modulation Index Control

Yoshinori TANAKA  Iwao SASASE 

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications  Vol.E92-B  No.4  pp.1272-1281
Publication Date: 2009/04/01
Online ISSN: 1745-1345
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: PAPER
Category: Wireless Communication Technologies
Keyword: 
RFID,  interference,  subcarrier,  modulation index,  ASK, 

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Summary: 
The performance of a UHF-band passive RFID system in a dense multi-reader environment is limited by both the reader-to-reader interference and reader-to-tag interference. In this paper, first, we propose a combination of subcarrier modulation backscattering and reduced carrier frequency offset among readers to reduce both the reader-to-reader interference and the reader-to-tag interference. Then, we propose a new distributed modulation index control scheme using the readers' estimation of the tag's SINR in order to further reduce the reader-to-tag interference. By adaptively controlling each reader's transmission modulation index, the asymmetric reader-to-tag interference can be effectively controlled to satisfy the required SINR of tags. Computer simulations show that the proposed scheme can reduce the minimum required inter-reader distance or increase the number of concurrently operable readers in dense multi-reader environments, especially when there are large differences in the levels of reader-to-tag interference. We show some optimizations of the proposed scheme for practical RFID applications. We also propose a bandwidth efficient modulation scheme for reader transmission which is suitable for the proposed modulation index control scheme.