RFID antennas are a very important component which emits the RF power generated by the RFID reader and communicates with the RFID tag. RFID antennas are resonant circuits matched to the RFID reader.

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Integration considerations

In many ways it is necessary to adapt the RFID antenna to the requirement of the application:

• Mechanical constraints are often a reason for customized RFID antennas. RFID antennas are relatively big components which often not fit into the customers application. Also connectors or skews make it difficult to integrate RFID antennas into an existing enclosure.
• Performance considerations make it often necessary to optimize RFID antennas. RFID antennas are typically a resonant circuit which is matched in order to achieve best results. When an antenna is integrated into a system the RFID antenna is mismatched and it is necessary to match is again. This step is necessary during the development phase in order to achieve e.g. optimum read write distance as well as reliability.
• Electronics and metal parts interfere with the RFID antenna and may cause losses. Whenever it is possible, there should be no metal next to the RFID antenna.

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Engineering Solutions

We are specialized in the design and integration of RFID antennas and develop them hand in hand with our customers.

With our knowledge and our measurement devices we are able to develop completely customized RFID antennas. After the mechanical design is done it is typically necessary to match the antenna inside the customers device and run test sequences which covers all relevant electronic documents or tags.

A complete testing of the interoperability performance is necessary in order to ensure that all relevant documents in the field can be accessed properly. This is a very important task especially for electronic passports where many variations of e.g. RFID chip module and operating systems can be present in the field.

The results of the measurements are used in the production process and the matching of each produced antenna is matched in order to compensate tolerances.

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RFID Antennas for Passport Applications

RFID read write antennas for passport applications have often special requirements. In a passport application the electronic document which contains the RFID chip module must be read with a RFID reader. Since the location where the RFID functionality is not defined, vendors can put them e.g. into the front or backside of the document.

The needed antenna for a solution covering both sides would be too big in a way that the passport could not be accessed reliably.

For these applications we offer antennas with included antenna switches. Like the antenna switch Add-On this solution allows to select between two RFID antennas but does also mismatch the inactive antenna so that it does not interact with the activated one.

The antennas with included antenna switches are handled bye the Universal Reader Module, the API and the PC/SC driver automatically so this is transparent for the application developer