Long-range Millimeter Wave Passive Tags
- Dirac Solutions, Inc.
Real-time remote monitoring, tracking, and localization of objects through long distances is an important need in various security and surveillance applications. To date, the most common approach to long range detection and tracking is to use optical ID systems due to their ability to focus from long ranges. However, optical systems are not considered as “all-weather” solutions since their reliability significantly decreases in rain, fog, snow, and sandstorms. Furthermore, they are not eye safe as they use high power lasers, and their reader is complex and expensive since it requires significant processing to reduce “false alarm” rates caused by background noise, rotation, scale variation, and sensitivity with respect to scanning directions. In an effort to address these concerns, DSI successfully developed a novel passive (battery-free) Radio Frequency (RF) tag and a software-defined-radio (SDR) reader with a communications range of 1 km through a Phase I SBIR effort. This breakthrough research pushed the limits of passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology significantly - by two orders of magnitude. In addition, this RF technology is an “all-weather” system as the RF signals do not degrade with poor weather conditions, does not produce false alarms as the tags have unique ID, and have low probability of intercept while operating in regulatory approved frequency band. In this recently completed Phase II SBIR project, the ultra-long-range battery-free RFID prototype systems capabilities were advanced to include the following important features: (1) Multiple tag detection with unique identification (2) Integration with sensors (neither the tags nor sensors requires batteries) (3) Localization capability These features were all developed and tested through extensive laboratory evaluations, as well as field experiments. Both the tag and reader form factors were reduced in size and packaged for extreme weather conditions and ten tags were manufactured for demonstration-based marketing to potential customers. Furthermore, the tag design was modified for longer ranges of about 2 Km. The ultra-long-range passive tag-sensor system developed in this SBIR project is the first ever battery-free RF tag-sensor with a communications range of longer than 1 Km.
- Research Organization:
- Dirac Solutions, Inc.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- Contributing Organization:
- University of Washington University of California at Santa Cruz
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0017787
- OSTI ID:
- 1780766
- Type / Phase:
- SBIR (Phase II)
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-DSI-17787-2
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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