This application is for a biomedical customer to develop and manufacture a range of multiplexed antenna readers from 16 antennas (4 x 4) up to 100 antennas (10 x 10). Various sizes and separation pitch of PCB antenna is required. Antenna separation pitch ranges from 9mm to 12.5mm.
The design gives a detection range of >9mm from the antenna to the 6mm diameter RFID disc transponders. There is also good isolation of one antenna from its neighbours, so that there is no pick up of tags sitting above adjacent antennas, which could lead to “false positive” detections. The key performance criteria is to achieve manufacturing repeatability of these printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs), whilst using only standard tolerance components, and to have no need for set on test tuning.
All hardware and firmware has been developed in house for this application based on adaptation of our existing RFID reader technology. We manufacture a turnkey printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) for our customer and deliver it on a short lead time of 5 – 6 weeks from order.
