RFID Antennae

Sensors NFC & RFID
1

Hello again.

I’ve been eyeing your UHF RFID Ring Antenna with interest.

At present, I’m building a device which uses a Simultaneous RFID Reader with a UHF RFID Antenna (TNC). This works nicely in the workshop. However, I want to mount the antenna on some agricultural equipment, where it’s going to be bashed a great deal - enough that the big TNC antenna would be smashed to pieces. Since the “ring” antenna is so small, however, I thought that I might encase it in rubber, which would protect it, and which shouldn’t block the radio waves. The only snag, however, is the tiny range - 1 inch, apparently - on the ring antenna.

My questions:

  • Is there any way to increase the range of the ring antenna to, say, a foot?

  • Are there any physical modifications that can be made to the ring antenna that might increase its range?

  • Or could the TNC antenna be stripped down so that it would be small enough to encase in rubber?

  • Or do you know of another, more suitable antenna that could be purchased off the shelf?

    • Thanks,

    Tom

    2

    Is there any way to increase the range of the ring antenna to, say, a foot? Are there any physical modifications that can be made to the ring antenna that might increase its range?

    Sadly, no the size and shape of the antenna dictate it's range. Changing either would make the antenna non resonant at 915MHz and at best would cause it to not work. Worst case, it could damage the connected device.

    Or could the TNC antenna be stripped down so that it would be small enough to encase in rubber?

    Not really. Again, changing the dimensions of the antenna will cause it to not resonate at the correct frequency. Plus, these things are glued together *really* well and opening them will probably break something

    Or do you know of another, more suitable antenna that could be purchased off the shelf?

    Absolutely! If you look in the [[hookup guide](https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/simultaneous-rfid-tag-reader-hookup-guide/using-an-external-antenna), we have a chart of FCC authorized antennas that will work with the M6E and you'd need to review each to see which one best fits your application. (All of these are more durable than our UHF RFID Antenna TNC) The higher the gain on the antenna you select, the more range it should have. A image of the chart can be found below.

    List_of_Antennas.jpg1457×706 153 KB
    https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/learn_t … tennas.jpg](https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/simultaneous-rfid-tag-reader-hookup-guide/using-an-external-antenna)