2198 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 14, NO.

7, JULY 2014

Smart Sensing Materials for Low-Cost

Chipless RFID Sensor
Emran Md Amin, Student Member, IEEE, Jhantu Kumar Saha,
and Nemai Chandra Karmakar, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract— Smart materials for chipless RFID sensors have

not been developed for the broadband/high speed wireless data
communication yet. Their applications are confined to some
dc and very high frequency physical sensors. In this paper,
various smart materials for RF sensing applications and their
characteristics in the influence of various physical parameters
have been analyzed. The working principle of chipless RFID
sensors along with their various design and experimental results
as well as their potential application is also presented. This paper
provides a pathway to low cost, passive, fully printable sensor
nodes for realtime condition monitoring.
Index Terms— Chipless RFID, sensor, smart materials.

I. I NTRODUCTION

T HE chipless RFID sensor has tremendous potential in

regards to technological breakthroughs, and its social and
environmental impacts. It has a number of innovative features
Fig. 1. Classification of sensing materials.

such as fully printable, passive, sub-cent and environment
friendly. The potential advantages of these unique features
permit chipless RFID sensor in unique applications that could
not be achieved previously with both traditional RFID sensors
[1], [2]. This needs significant investigation in suitable smart
materials for sensing individual physical parameters and fab-
rication processes.
Smart materials are also called nanostructured functional
materials; represent an important class of materials with a wide
spectrum of applications in solar cells, fuel cells, sensors and
photo electrochemical cells for water splitting.
Smart materials include conductive polymers, PEDOT:PSS
(poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-polystyrenesulfonic acid)
[3], [4], Phenanthrene [5], Kapton [6], PVA (Polyvinyl
Alcohol) [7]–[9] PAni (poly aniline) [10], grapheme [11],
plastic crystals [12], hydrophilic polymer [13], single-walled
carbon nanotubes (SWTs) [14], metallic oxides [15], nano-
particles [16], etc. exhibit multifunctional properties. These
smart materials are very susceptible to external environmental
changes, such as pressure, temperature and electric field and
are suitable for sensing applications.
Manuscript received January 9, 2014; revised March 22, 2014; accepted
April 1, 2014. Date of publication April 17, 2014; date of current version
May 22, 2014. The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper and
approving it for publication was Prof. Massood Z. Atashbar.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer
Systems Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800,
Australia (e-mail: emran.amin@monash.edu; jhantu.saha@monash.edu;
nemai.karmakar@monash.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2014.2318056
1530-437X © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
The applicability of these materials is strictly dependent
on the availability of optimized synthesis techniques that
allow the processing and manipulation in a precise manner.
Synthesis of these functional materials can be conducted
through several novel fabrication and characterization tech-
niques. In this paper, various sensing materials for RF
sensing application are reviewed and their characteristics in the
influence of various physical parameters are analyzed. Finally,
the working principle of chipless RFID sensors followed by
their various design and experimental results as well as their
potential applications are discussed.
II. S MART M ATERIALS FOR RFID S ENSING
A number of smart materials can be used for RFID sensors.
Fig. 1 shows the classification of smart materials according to
the different sensing applications.
The most useful characteristic of a smart material is its
carrier mobility μ, defined as the proportionality constant
between the applied electric field, E and the corresponding
average carrier drift velocity, ν [17]. Usually, the carrier mobil-
ity of these materials is quite low, and they are not suitable
for RF applications. However, they can be introduced as the
sensing materials that change RF responses of microwave
devices under the influence of changing physical parameters.
This is the main hypothesis of this paper.
A. Material Characteristics
For RF sensing applications as shown in Fig. 1, EM
characterization of the materials need to be investigated.
AMIN et al.: SMART SENSING MATERIALS FOR LOW-COST CHIPLESS RFID SENSOR
Fig. 2. Conductivity of various organic and inorganic semiconductor
materials [14].
Two aspects are unique to each material: (a) its atomic
mass, and (b) its electronic structure. The uniqueness of the
electronic structure of each material or molecule is used to
identify the source of emitted electrons and photons from
materials under analysis. The conductivity of various organic
and inorganic semiconductors is shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 shows
the pure conductors such as silver, copper and aluminium.
These highly conductive materials can be used for μ- and mm-
wave passive circuit design [18], [19]. On the other hand, some
semi- conductive materials such as Indium Tin Oxide (ITO),
silver flakes and sliver nano-particles offer conductivity in
the order of 50-100 times less than pure conductor bulks.
Therefore, though they are not suitable for microwave/mm
wave passive design, they can be used for sensing applications.
It is worth investigating the properties of these low conduc-
tive materials for sensing applications. For the investigation,
two types of material properties are analyzed by the diagnostic
techniques: (a) the structural properties of a micro-fabricated
device such as its thickness and surface roughness, and (b) the
elemental and chemical composition of a material.
Optical and scanning electron and transmission electron
microscopy techniques are used to observe the structure of
micro-fabricated devices. X-ray diffraction and transmission
electron microscopy are used for analysis of crystal structure
and defects.
The analysis and characterization techniques include micro-
structural and surface morphology (XRD, AFM, SEM, TEM
etc.), optical (UV-Vis), electrical and thermal parameters (DC
conductivity and stability etc.), microwave (scattering para-
meters i.e. complex permittivity, dielectric loss, reflection loss
etc. in the GHz range 20,21].
Various smart materials such as temperature, humidity, PH ,
gas sensing materials and their basic properties are reviewed
and analyzed based on the above analysis and characterization
techniques are described in the following sections.
B. Materials for RF Sensing:
1) Temperature Sensing Materials:
a) Phenanthrene: It is a sublimation substance from
polycyclic hydrocarbon group which transforms directly from
2199
solid to gas phase without passing through an intermediate
liquid phase. Sublimation is an endothermic phase transition
that occurs at temperatures and pressures below a substance’s
triple-point in its phase diagram. The enthalpy of phase
transition for Phenanthrene is 90.5 KJmol−1 and transition
temperature (Tc ) is around 72° C. Dielectric behavior of
Phenanthrene is studied in [5]. It shows that after the transition
temperature, there is a drastic increase of dielectric constant
εr which is permanent if the vapour is not de-sublimated.
Therefore, this property can be used to realize a temperature
threshold sensor for chipless RFID tag that triggers at the
transition temperature of Phenanthrene.
b) Ionic plastic crystal: The ionic conductivity of plastic
crystals changes due to organic molecule defects and the
movement of crystals. The plastic crystal eg. N-Methyl-N-
Butylpyrrolidiniumhexafluorophosphate (P14 PF6 ) is a good
candidate for temperature sensing. As temperature is increased
from −15 °C to 70°C [12], it goes through three phase
transitions starting from crystal state and ends up as liquid.
This above result indicates that ionic plastic crystal may be
used as a temperature sensing materials.
c) Nano-structured metal oxide: Semiconducting metal
oxides such as ITO and ZnO are wide band gap materi-
als, show promising classes for sensing. Due to the limited
availability of Indium on the earth, research are included
the physical properties of ZnO films have indicated that the
optical and electrical parameters of the ZnO films, similar to
that of ITO. Both materials are very susceptible to external
environmental changes, such as pressure, temperature, and
electric field. ZnO also has a high melting point (2248°K)
and a good thermal stability. The optical absorption edge of
ZnO thin film has a regular red-shift with temperature. This
corresponds to a linear relation between the band gap energy
of ZnO and temperature [15]. The optical band gap with direct
transition can be calculated from the following relationship (1).
(αhv) = B(hv − Eg)1/2 (1)
Where, hv is photon energy, α is the absorption coefficient
near the band edge, B is a constant between 107 and 108 m−1 ,
Eg is optical band gap. The details description regarding the
measurement of the band gap of ZnO can be found in the
reference [22], [23]; this suggests that ZnO thin film is an
excellent sensing material for temperature sensor.
Fig. 3 shows the experimental data and the fitted line of
Band gap versus temperature of ZnO. The band gap narrowing
is caused by the increase of temperature as shown in Fig. 4.
The smooth surface morphology with the surface roughness
of ZnO thin film is about 7.4nm and good crystalline quality
with preferred orientation (0002) along the c-axis, as shown
in Fig. 4. This also indicates that ZnO may be used as
a temperature sensing materials and has some advantages
in fabrication. It is also robust enough to survive in real
engineering environments.
2) Humidity Sensing Materials:
a) Kapton: Kapton polyamide has a linear dielectric
change with humidity [7]. Kapton film has relative permittivity
of 3.25 at 25% humidity and room temperature of 23°C.
At this temperature, Kapton’s relative permeability humidity
2200
Fig. 3. Band gap versus temperature of ZnO.
Fig. 4. XRD picture of ZnO thin film. The insert is its AFM picture.
(εr ) changes linearly with relative humidity (RH) given by
expression (2)
εr = 3.05 + 0.008 × RH
The dissipation factor (tan δ) changes from 0.0015 at 0%
humidity to 0.0035 at 100 %. During moisture absorption,
Kapton goes through hydrolysis process which modifies the
internal electrical polarization. The above properties sug-
gest that Kapton can be introduced in UHF RFID humidity
sensors [6].
b) Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA): PVA is a hygroscopic
polymer material that absorbs water. It has an OH group
bonded to each carbon in the backbone chain (-CH2 -CH2 -)n .
It has also high molecular weight and a glass transition
temperature of about 70°C. Standard products have 98-99 or
87-89 Mol % of hydroxyl groups and can take up to 25 % of
water from humid ambient air [7].
PVA is hydrophilic in nature. It can be used as poly-
electrolyte based resistive sensor. [25], [26] report the high
frequency characteristics of PVA in aqueous solution. In these
studies, the dielectric behavior of water is investigated by
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 14, NO. 7, JULY 2014
Fig. 5. Photograph of PEDOT film fabricated on flexible plastic substrate
by spin coating method.
Fig. 6. PH dependency of resistivity in PEDT film on PET foil.
changing the temperature and PVA concentration. The result
shows that the real part of relative permittivity εr decreases at
frequency range from 0.2- 20 GHz as the PVA concentration
in water increases.
Penza and Anisimkin have indicated, the potential of PVA
film for humidity sensing in [27], [28]. They found negligible
sensitivity of PVA film toward some gases such as (NH3 , NO2 ,
(2)
CO) and low hysteresis characteristics in sensing ambient
humidity. This makes PVA a promising candidate as chem-
ically sensitive layer for sensing relative humidity.
3) P H Sensing Materials: The advantage of organic semi-
conductors (Conducting Polymer) is their process ability.
However, the instability towards environmental influences and
the difficulty to achieve device level performance are chal-
lenging, but achievable [3]. Among the different conducting
polymers used in practical applications, PEDOT is known as a
particularly robust and well conducting material [4], [27]–[29].
The 1μm thick PEDOT film on plastic substrate is
fabricated at Monash University’s Materials Engineering
Laboratories by spin coating method. Fig. 5 shows the photo-
graph of PEDOT film fabricated on flexible plastic substrate
by spin coating method. The conductivity is about 5×104 S/m.
The PH dependency of resistivity in PEDOT film on PET
foil is shown in Fig. 6. The conductivity of PEDOT depends
apparently on the PH level, with the highest conductivities at
AMIN et al.: SMART SENSING MATERIALS FOR LOW-COST CHIPLESS RFID SENSOR
Fig. 7. Transparent single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) films.
(A) Films of the indicated thickness on quartz substrates. (B) A large,
80-nm-thick film on sapphire substrate 10 cm in diameter. (C) Fixed film on
a Mylar sheet. (D) AFM image of a 150 nm thick t-SWNT film surface (color
scale: black to bright yellow, 30 nm). The text in (A) to (C) lies behind the
films [Reproduced from Ref. Wu Z Cet. Al„ Transparent, conductive carbon
nanotube films. Science 305 (2004) 1273-1276].
low PH , but the change is not dramatic except for pH value
exceeding 11. This changes are reversible over a wide PH
range [3]. This above result indicates that PEDOT may be
used as a PH sensing material.
4) Gas Sensing Materials: Transparent Conductive Carbon
Nanotube (CNT) Films: By using a common suction filtration
method, water-dispersible Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
(SWCNTs) can be sucked into porous filter paper. It can
be assembled and well distributed through the paper. Thus
it affords robust sensing arrays with the same thickness as
the paper which is shown in Fig. 7 [30]. Integrating this
type of active nanomaterials into paper matrices, opens up
opportunities in flexible sensors and optoelectronic devices.
5) Strain Sensing Materials: Various materials such as
glass microfiber-reinforced poly-tetra-fluoro-ethylene (PTFE)
composite, polyester-based stretchable fabric, Nickel-Titanium
(Nitinol) alloy can be used as strain and crack sensors for
structural health monitoring [31]–[33]. PTFE based sensor
has a relatively large resonance frequency change due to its
large dielectric constant variation under temperature fluctua-
tion [31].
6) Discussion of Smart Materials for Sensing: So far vari-
ous materials such as temperature, humidity, PH , gas, strain
sensing materials and their basic properties are identified,
analyzed and classified. The identification of smart materials
have been done based on dielectric and conductive property
analysis for mm and μm wave RF sensing. The classification
of materials for temperature, humidity, PH , gas, strain sensing
have also been done based on physical parameter sensing.
Moreover, these materials having multifunctional properties
and having potential to sense more than one parameters are
also analyzed in details.
2201
Fig. 8. General block diagram of Chipless RFID sensor system.
III. C HIPLESS RFID S ENSOR
In the preceding section various smart materials for RF
sensing have been reviewed and their characteristics in the
influence of various physical parameters have been analyzed
in details. In this section, smart sensing material integrated
spectral signature based chipless RFID sensor system is
presented. Firstly the working principle of chipless RFID
sensors is presented. Design of various chipless RFID sensors,
preparation and integrating smart materials in fabricated tags
and finally experimental results for humidity and temperature
sensors are described in details. The results realize a low-cost,
ubiquitous, passive RFID multi-sensor node.
A. Chipless RFID Sensor System
Fig. 8 shows a complete block diagram of a chipless RFID
sensor system. A continuous wave frequency spectrum from
the reader’s transmitting antenna illuminates the tag sensor.
Part of the interrogation signal is backscattered from the tag
sensor and captured by the reader’s receiving antenna. Finally
the reader decodes data by observing the frequency signature.
As shown in Fig. 9, the reflected signal carries both the ID
and sensing information of the object.
The tag sensor consists of a number of multi-resonators
which emit distinct frequency signatures when illuminated
by an ultra-wide band (UWB) signal. There are two types
of resonators within the tag sensor [34], [35]. The first set
of resonators carries the data ID of the tag, and a second
set of resonators carries the sensing information. Sensing
mechanism is incorporated using smart polymers which show
RF sensitivity for certain environmental physical parameters
such as temperature, humidity, gas, pH etc.
In a spectral signature based chipless RFID sensor, dielectric
sensing is incorporated with a smart material used as a super-
state for the resonators. As the material changes its dielectric
or conductive property with environmental parameters, a res-
onance frequency shift occurs. This shift can be quantified as
sensing data. Hence, a chipless RFID sensor has dual features
of carrying (i) Data ID and (ii) Sensing information as shown
in Fig. 8.
2202
Fig. 9. (a) Layout of chipless RFID tag sensor. The simulation is performed in
CST MWS with Taconic TLX_0 as substrate with substrate height of 0.5 mm;
εr = 2.45 and tanδ = 0.0019. The dimensions are: Ws = 7.3 mm; Ls =
6.8 mm; Ss = 0.3 mm; Gs = 0.2 mm, We = Le = 6 mm, Ge = 0.3 mm;
Se = 4.4 mm. (b) Simulated RCS magnitude of the tag sensor.
In a chipless RFID humidity sensor, the tag provides iden-
tification and relative humidity of the environment wirelessly.
Humidity is one of the most important physical parameters for
assessment of air quality in controlled rooms; in monitoring
food conservation; in detecting water damage in enclosed
walls, buildings and archives. There is an ongoing demand
for low-cost, flexible, passive humidity sensor for numerous
real world applications [36].
Moreover, a chipless RFID temperature threshold sensor
permanently changes its resonant property once a critical
temperature is exceeded. Traditional temperature sensitive
polymers have a reversible dielectric property change with
temperature. Hence, a microwave resonator of this material
would have resonant frequency shift during both endothermic
and exothermic processes. However, a sublimate material per-
manently changes its dielectric property when a critical tem-
perature is attained. Once the critical temperature is reached,
these materials show no dielectric property change even if the
temperatures go below the critical temperature. This feature
is used to realize a chipless RFID temperature sensor that
triggers only once [37]. Following two sections present a
real time humidity sensor and a temperature threshold sensor
respectively.
B. Design of Chipless RFID Tag Sensor
In our chipless RFID tag sensor, a rectangular patch with
three U shaped slot is designated for data encoding and an
electric inductor capacitor (ELC) resonator performs environ-
ment sensing [7].
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 14, NO. 7, JULY 2014
As shown in the layout of our tag sensor (Fig. 9 (a)), three
U-shaped slots are tuned to operate within 7.0 to 9.0 GHz.
Each slot resonates at a particular frequency depending on
its structural parameters. This resonance is observed as a
magnitude dip in the backscattered RCS spectrum when the tag
is illuminated with a plane wave. The presence and absence
of a resonance dip is used to represent data ID ‘1’ and ‘0’
respectively. Moreover, an ELC resonator is designed which
operates between 6.0-7.0 GHz to incorporate a sensing in
our chipless tag. An ELC resonator couples strongly to a
polarized E- field and marginally to a uniform H- field as
shown in Fig. 9(a). As, a plane wave illuminates the structure,
the middle capacitor like structure couples to the E field and
is connected to two parallel loops which provide inductance.
Thus, the structure resonates at a frequency corresponding to
its equivalent LC. Here, a sensing polymer film is used as
a superstate for the ELC resonator to incorporate dielectric
change in the resonant property. The dielectric permittivity of
sensing polymer modifies the equivalent LC of the resonator
to produce measurable frequency shift. This frequency shift
indicates the change in sensing parameters.
The simulated RCS magnitude vs frequency for the inte-
grated sensor is shown in Fig. 9(b). Here the resonant frequen-
cies for data encoding and temperature sensing can be clearly
identified. Only the data bit combination ‘111’ is considered
for the tag sensor.
The designed tag sensor is fabricated using chemical etching
process on Taconic TLX_0 substrate. It is done commercially
by ‘Lintek’, a manufacturer of printed circuit boards. In the
next section, two distinct application of our chipless RFID tag
sensor is presented.
C. Chipless RFID Sensor for Real-Time Relative
Humidity (RH) Monitoring
In this paper, PVA is applied to our chipless RFID tag
sensor to incorporate humidity sensing. A detail comparison
of humidity sensitivity between PVA and Kapton is presented
in [7]. It shows PVA has superior water absorption property
than Kapton.
To incorporate humidity sensing, the fabricated tag is mod-
ified by putting PVA 31-50000 on top of the ELC resonator.
The PVA polymer is from Sigma Aldritch and it is dissolved
in a solution of H2 O/ Ethanol 3/1 for about 3 hours of
magnetic stirring. Afterwards it became completely soluble
and transparent. Then, it is carefully poured on top of the
ELC structure using a fine droplet. The amount of PVA used
is about 0.2 ml.
To validate the sensor operation, an experiment is
performed using Miller Nelson Temperature and Humidity
controller [38]. A photo of the overall experimental set-
up is shown in Fig. 10(a). Here, the humidity controller is
connected to an esky chamber through a water flow sensor.
The esky chamber has an air tight lid so that its temperature
and humidity can be controlled from outside our sensor and
a DIGITECH QP- 06013 data logger are placed inside the
chamber (Fig. 10(b)). The data logger reads and stores the
temperature and humidity inside the chamber at a regular
AMIN et al.: SMART SENSING MATERIALS FOR LOW-COST CHIPLESS RFID SENSOR 2203

Fig. 10. (a) Photo of experimental setup at our RFID laboratory. (b) Setup
for reading S21 of our tag sensor inside the esky chamber. (c) Photograph of
chipless RFID humidity sensor on with substrate height of 0.5 mm; εr = 2.45
and tanδ = 0.0019.

Fig. 11. (a) Measured transmission coefficient (calibrated) (S21 ) versus

frequency for the chipless RFID humidity sensor with PVA coating. (b) A
time interval. Two horn antennas are connected to a VNA for detail experimental results with ELC resonator as humidity sensor.
frequency response measurement. The sensor tag (Fig. 10(c))
is placed between the two antennas for measuring the trans-
mission coefficient.
By changing the set temperature and humidity of Miller
Nelson controller we measured the transmission coefficient
(S21 ) of our sensor tag for different environment conditions
(Fig. 11(a)). During the experiment, temperature was almost
constant at around 22.5°C. However, the relative humidity
changed from 60% to 80% inside the chamber.
It is observed that though the positions of resonances
for U shaped slots do not vary considerably, the resonant
frequency of ELC resonator is significantly shifted towards
lower frequency %RH. By calibrating this frequency shift, the
ambient humidity can be determined.
A detailed analysis of humidity sensing mechanism can Fig. 12. Sensitivity curve for measured frequency shift. The curve is
be done from Fig. 11(b). Here, an extensive measurement normalized by the resonant frequency at minimum RH (35%).
of transmission coefficient is shown for RH change (35-
85%). It is found that, minimum power at resonance of the
ELC resonator is also affected by RH change. This is due D. Chipless RFID Sensor for Temperature
// Threshold Detection
to the variation of imaginary εr. of PVA with RH. At high
//
frequency, the imaginary εr. increases with humidity [25] and In supply chain management, frequently it is desirable
the conductivity decreases and dissipation factor increases to detect a certain event rather than continuous monitor-
accordingly. Fig. 12 plots the resonant frequency shift variation ing. For example, violation or increase ‘of certain tempera-
with RH. By calibrating the sensitivity curve we can determine ture threshold value can be of great significance during the
RH of an unknown environment. transport and storage of products, chemicals, pharmaceuticals
2204
Fig. 13. Measured transient response (S21 ) of ELC resonator for different
times at 85 °C. (a) Magnitude. (b) Phase.
Fig. 14. Measured resonant frequency of ELC resonator versus time while
the set temperature is 65, 75, 85 and 95 °C.
or explosive materials. Targeting these applications a low-cost
chipless RFID temperature threshold sensor tag is proposed
for event detection.
Here, we have used irreversible dielectric property of
Phenanthrene to develop a temperature threshold sensor. As
discussed in section II, Phenanthrene is a sublimate material
which vaporizes at its transition temperature around 72o C.
Hence, a superstate layer of Phenanthrene on our chipless
RFID tag sensor will operate as a temperature sensor which
changes state at 72oC. Moreover, the sensor is a one shot event
detector which implies it will remain in its final state for-
ever, once its temperature goes above transition temperature.
The following experiment demonstrates the feasibility of tem-
perature threshold detection.
1) Preparation of Phenanthrene Solution: Phenanthrene is
Easily Soluble to THF (Tetrahydrofuran). To prepare 1 mole
of Phenanthrene and THF solution, a chemical container is
filled with 1.78 gm (exactly measured in micro balance) of
Phenanthrene powder and 200 ml of THF. Then it is heated at
around 60°C and magnetically stirred for about 10-15 mins.
The Phenanthrene is completely dissolved in THF and the
solution is used for experiment.
The Phenanthrene: THF solution is poured on top of ELC
resonator of fabricated tag sensor using a fine droplet and
masking technique. Later, the tag is heated at low temperature
(around 40°C) to evaporate THF and a crystal of Phenanthrene
is formed on the ELC resonator. The thickness of Phenan-
threne film is 0.2 mm.
2) Experiment for Temperature Threshold Detection: The
experiment is performed in an enclosure where temperature
can be controlled. Fig. 13 shows the transient response (S21 )
of the ELC resonator measured at 30 mins time interval while
temperature is at constant 85°C. It shows, at initial condition
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 14, NO. 7, JULY 2014
(0 mins) the resonant frequency is at 6.45 GHz which shifted
to 6.77 GHz after 90 mins. It implies after 90 mins ELC
resonator has a permanent frequency shift of 320 MHz. This
frequency shift confirms its operation as temperature threshold
sensor. Also, both the S21 magnitude and phase corresponds
to frequency shift.
This experiment is repeated for different temperature 65,
75, 85 and 95°C to verify temperature threshold sensing of
our tag sensor. Fig. 14 shows the measured resonant frequency
vs time of the ELC resonator for different temperature levels.
At initial condition, the resonant frequency is constant for all
temperature. However, for 65 and 75°C the resonant frequency
shift is negligible for the whole period of time. In contrast,
at 85 and 95°C it shows a drastic shift about 320 MHz.
This corresponds to temperature threshold violation at around
80°C. As Phenanthrene sublimated at this temperature, the
resonant shift remained permanent once triggered. Further to
confirm the sensor performance below transition temperature,
the experiment is continued for about 5 days at 65°C. Still,
no significant resonant shift is observed.
E. Discussion on Chipless RFID Sensor
We have developed low cost, fully printable and compact
chipless RFID sensors for item level tagging and multi para-
meter sensing. The sensor tag has the potential of including
multiple parameter sensing as the sensing mechanism is inde-
pendent of data ID generation. Applications of hydrophilic
polymer, PVA to incorporate humidity sensitivity within the
chipless RFID tag is presented here. Results show that a single
ELC resonator can contribute to adequate resonant frequency
shift to realize a high sensitive humidity sensor. Hence, this
compact chipless RFID humidity sensor is truly a state- of-
the- art technology in ubiquitous sensing.
Furthermore, another novel application of the chipless RFID
sensor would be temperature threshold sensing for event
detection. Here, a chipless RFID temperature sensor having
nonvolatile memory is presented using the RF properties of
Phenanthrene sublimate materials. The sensor stores the event
of ‘threshold temperature violation’ and retains its memory
permanently.
Moreover, Phenanthrene is one of the polycyclic hydrocar-
bon chosen in this research. Other sublimate materials in this
group can be used to get particular transition temperature.
For example, Naphthalene, Benzene, Anthracene etc. each has
different transition temperatures and suitable for integrating in
our tag sensor [39]. Therefore, our designed tag sensor is a
general platform for versatile low cost temperature sensing
applications.
The experimental results of the real time humidity sensor
and temperature threshold sensor are presented to provide only
their primary prospects of chipless RFID sensing application.
Due to their potential benefits, the prospects and applications
of chipless RFID sensors are presented in the following
section.
IV. P ROSPECTS AND A PPLICATIONS
The chipless RFID sensor has tremendous potential in
regard to technological breakthroughs, and its social and
AMIN et al.: SMART SENSING MATERIALS FOR LOW-COST CHIPLESS RFID SENSOR
Fig. 15. Coke can and milk carton with chipless RFID sensors.
Fig. 16. A schematic diagram of home environment with a chipless RFID
sensor system.
environmental impacts. A number of application areas are
identified in the section.
Food Safety: Perishable products like milk, fruit juice, raw
meat and canned food in a supermarket can be tagged with
our chipless RFID sensors as shown in Fig. 15.
A recent study revealed that a major retail chain could
not maintain 4°C in their frozen lines. These short-term
products exhibit certain chemical changes which can be sensed
for status monitoring [40]. The identification, collection and
dissipation of expired perishable products represent a huge
international market which will be immensely benefited by
passive chipless sensors. Moreover, this would enhance prod-
uct quality and customer satisfaction.
Pharmaceuticals: According to [41], the global market
for RFID products and services in the pharmaceutical indus-
try was valued at $112 million in 2008, and is expected
to grow to $884 million in 2015. In the pharmaceutical
industry, various chemicals and biomolecules require certain
environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, pressure, pH
level etc.) for drug culture and storage. A minute change in
physical parameters can destroy the efficacy of a drug. In such
applications, highly sensitive, flexible dielectric biosensors can
improve production quality and reduce economic loss.
Smart Home: Our low cost sensor also has the feature of
integrating multiple sensors in a single chipless RFID tag. This
multiple parameter sensing node can be used in home environ-
ment monitoring as shown in Fig. 16. As for an example, CO
sensor is mandatory in homes in UK. Also, homes in arctic
region need continuous temperature and humidity monitoring
unit. In future smart homes [42], multiple sensor nodes will
provide necessary information to enable pervasive condition
monitoring of temperature, humidity, and presence of noxious
gas.
2205
V. C ONCLUSIONS AND F UTURE W ORKS
This paper presents a comprehensive review of smart
sensing materials for RF sensing and their applications. The
contributions of the paper can be summarized as follows:
(i) identification of smart materials for mm and μm wave
RF sensing, (ii) classification of materials based on physical
parameter sensing, (iii) characterization of materials for RF
sensitivity analysis, (iv) novel chipless RFID sensor design,
(v) new results of real- time humidity monitoring using PVA,
and temperature threshold detection using Phenanthrene, and
(vi) finally potential application area identification.Smart sens-
ing material identification and classification have been done
based on dielectric and conductive property analysis.
The materials exhibit high RF sensitivity of particular phys-
ical parameter. Moreover, materials having multifunctional
properties are investigated. These materials have potentials
to sense more than one parameters. However, there remains
challenges in characterizing them fully in high frequency and
measuring the dielectric and conducting profiles for wide range
of applications.
The chipless RFID sensor design has the potential to incor-
porate multiple parameters sensing as the resonators dedicated
to data ID and sensing operates independently. Moreover, the
sensor is compact, fully printable in flexible substrate for
robust applications.
Results presented in this paper confirm the suitability of
chipless RFID sensors in real world humidity monitoring.
Also, a temperature threshold sensor with event detection
features has great application in supply chain management.
For instance, the perishable items in a superstore needs to be
kept at temperature below 4°C. In such applications, a low-
cost temperature threshold sensor can monitor individual items
whether the critical temperature has been passed during trans-
portation and storage. This would largely benefit the industry,
wholesalers and customers in particular for identifying expired
products.
Possibility of PVA, Phenanthrene, is just a beginning, we
will explore other semiconductor and meta-materials includ-
ing PEDOT, plastic crystals, metallic oxides, SWCNTs and
Graphene. Also, their electrical and thermal properties (con-
ductivity, stability etc.), microwave parameters (scattering
parameters i.e. complex permittivity, dielectric loss, reflection
loss etc.) in the GHz range will be characterized for RFID
sensing applications.
The future goal of this research is a fully-printable chipless
RFID sensor that will promote green technology and pollution-
free disposable sensor nodes for pervasive sensing. Such low-
cost ubiquitous sensing technology can uniquely identify and
monitor each and every physical object through internet of
things (IOT).
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Associate Professor
B. Winther-Jensen, Department of Materials Engineering,
Monash University for his support and technical discussion
in this research.
2206
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Emran Md Amin (S’10) received the bachelor’s
degree in electrical and electronics engineering from
the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Tech-
nology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2009. He is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree at the Department of Elec-
trical and Computer Systems Engineering, Monash
University, Clayton, VIC, Australia. His research
area is chipless RFID sensors and radiometric partial
discharge detection of high-voltage equipment. His
aim is to develop a chipless RFID sensor platform
using electromagnetic metamaterial structures and
novel polymer materials for low-cost ubiquitous sensing.
AMIN et al.: SMART SENSING MATERIALS FOR LOW-COST CHIPLESS RFID SENSOR
Jhantu Kumar Saha received the Ph.D. degree in
materials science and engineering from Saitama Uni-
versity, Japan, in 2008. He has over 10 years of mul-
tidisciplinary research and development experience
on nanotechnology, including fabrication and char-
acterization of materials and optoelectronic devices
using wide-range of nanofabrication and character-
ization techniques in Japan, Canada, and Australia.
He produced more than 45 journal and conference
publications, and has a passion for the development
of new products and processes. He is currently with
the Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, Monash
University, Clayton, VIC, Australia, where he is involved in the fabrication
and characterization of smart materials, including polymer and advanced
fabrication techniques for developing chipless RFID sensor with the Depart-
ments of Materials Engineering and Chemistry, Melbourne Centre for Nano-
Fabrication, Clayton.
2207
Nemai Chandra Karmakar (S’91–M’91–SM’99)
received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical
and electronics engineering from the Bangladesh
University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka,
Bangladesh, in 1987 and 1989, respectively, the
M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada,
in 1991, the Ph.D. degree from the University of
Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, in 1999,
the P.G.Dip.Tchg. degree in higher education from
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in
2001, and the M.H.Ed. degree from Griffith University, Brisbane, in 2007. He
is an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Sys-
tems Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia. He possesses
approximately 22 years of teaching, design, and development experience
in antennas, microwave active and passive circuits, and RFIDs in Canada,
Australia, and Singapore. He has authored and co-authored more than 250
scientific journal and conference articles, eight books, 32 book chapters,
six Australian and international patents applications, two invited lectures,
and numerous conference abstracts, and is a Session Chair in reputable
international conferences and a reviewer of prestigious journals, like the IEEE
T RANSACTIONS ON M ICROWAVE T HEORY AND T ECHNIQUES and the IEEE
T RANSACTIONS ON A NTENNAS AND P ROPAGATIONS.