Design of a Small Radio Frequency Identification Tag Antenna Using a Corrugated Meander Line Applicable to a Drug Runout Sensor System

This article proposes an ultrahigh frequency band radio frequency identification (RFID) tag antenna for drug runout management that can be used in hospitals. The RFID tag antenna is designed to function as a sensor that alerts drug runout when a drug inside a drip chamber is completely consumed but does not work when a drug remains inside a drop chamber. A previously proposed 915 MHz dipole antenna, is too large to be attached to the drip chamber of a feeding bag. Moreover, the length of the dipole (L) should be increased for conjugate matching with an RFID chip. Therefore, the dipole antenna is downsized so that it can be attached to the drip chamber through a fine meander line structure coupling with a corrugate meander line. A transparent cover is added to enhance the grip force between the designed antenna and the drip chamber and to enable detachment. The dimensions of the completed antenna structure attachable to a drip chamber are 32.59 mm (height) and 13.5 mm (width). The gain reduction due to the decreased antenna length is enhanced. The fabricated antenna shows an average omni-directional read range of 10.65 m on a horizontal plane and has the function of sensing the presence of a drug.