Energy Harvesting: RF for RFID tag

RFID is an acronym for Radio Frequency Identification, which is a wireless communication technology that enables users to uniquely identify tagged objects or people via radio frequency waves. It is rapidly becoming a costeffective technology for various sectors like the supply chains, livestock management, military’s weapon tracking and the medical industry. In general, there are two types of RFID tags – active and passive. Passive tag has a small physical form factor and does not have an on-board battery. It relies on the RFID reader to supply power to activate the tag. Active tag on the other hand has an onboard battery power which supplies continuous power to the tag. As such, it has greater capability and is advantageous compared to the passive tag. One of the most prominent advantages is in terms of its long range communication distance. However, battery depletes over time and replacing the battery can be tedious, time-consuming and costly. This project aims to enable active RFID tags to harvest energy from surrounding radio frequency (RF) to power and to recharge the on-board battery of the tag