GA Antennas v. Commercial Broadband Antennas in RFID Tag Antenna Design

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A Comparison of GA Antennas v. Commercial Broadband Antennas in RFID Tag Antenna Design

Project Overview

A genetic algorithm (GA) is a technique for solving search and optimization problems inspired by evolutionary biology. A GA starts with a pool of "solutions" and through mutations and recombination and "survival of the fittest", the most optimized solution survives. GAs are being implemented in a wide range of applications from code breaking to circuit design and in this project, I will focus on their relevance to antenna design. Traditionally, antenna design consists of defining certain desired properties and then manipulating physical characteristics of the antenna such as shape and size to match those properties. The design relies on intuition and empirical experiments and leads to imprecise results. With the use of GAs, there is a potential for novel and more precise antenna designs. I will survey research that is being done with GAs and antenna design and compare their efficiency to existing antennas. Specifically, I will look at commercial RFID tag antennas. Time permitting, I will design and build my own GA RFID tag antennas and test them next to commercial antennas.

The Crooked-Wire Genetic Antenna
designed to radiate over a hemisphere with right-hand circular polarization

Setting up a Genetic Algorithm

1. Set up simulator - NEC2
2. Define problem
3. Determine objective function
4. Determine chromosome mapping and processing
5. Setting GA parameters

GA References

Agrawall, N.P., Kumar, G., Ray, K.P. "Wide-Band Planar Monopole Antennas", IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Volume 46, Issue 2, p. 294-295, February 1998.

Altshuler, Edward and Derek Linden. "Design of a wire antenna using a genetic algorithm." Journal of Electronic Defense, vol.20, no.7, p.50-52 (July 1997).

Guha, D. "Microstrip and Printed Antennas: Recent Trends and Developments", Telecommunications in Modern Satellite, Cable and Broadcasting Service, October 2003.

Linden, Derek S. "Automated Design and Optimization of Wire Antennas Using Genetic Algorithms", MIT EECS PhD, 1997.

Kerkhoff, A., Rogers, R., Ling, H. "The use of the genetic algorithm approach in the design of ultra-wideband antennas", Radio and Wireless Conference, p. 93-96, August 2001.

Sijher, T.S. and A. A. Kishk. "Antenna Modeling by Infitesimal Dipoles Using Genetic Algorithms", Progress in Electromagnetics Research, Pier 52, 225-254, 2005.

Villegas, Frank et al. "A Parallel Electromagnetic Genetic-Algorithm Optimization (EGO) Application for Patch Antenna Design", IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 52, no. 9, September, 2004.

http://cs.felk.cvut.cz/~xobitko/ga/ "Introduction to Genetic Algorithms"

Bow-Tie References

Schaffrath, M., Ukkonen, L., Sydanheimo, L., Kivikoski, M. "RFID Antenna Designs for Paper Industry Applications: Passive Bow-Tie-Transponder Performance Analysis", Antennas, Radar, and Wave Propagation, July 2005.

Kumar G., Ray, K.P. Broadband Microstrip Antennas . Artech House, Boston, 2003.

Cole, P., Ranasighe, D., Jamali, B. "Coupling Relations in RFID Systems II: Practical Performance Measurements", Auto-ID Centre, University of Adelaide, http://www.autoidlabs.org/whitepapers/ade-autoid-wh003.pdf, 2003.

Wong, K.L. Compact and Broadband Microstrip Antennas. John Wiley, Sons, Inc., New York, 2002.

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