JP2009118442A - Antenna device having high surface impedance structure and rfid tag - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an antenna device having a high surface impedance structure capable of reducing its thickness and loss. <P>SOLUTION: A sheet-shaped structure has a ground layer 10, vias 20 vertically extending from the ground layer 10, a top layer 30 connected to the ground layer 10 by the vias 20, a dielectric layer 40 filling the part between the top layer 30 and the ground layer 10, and a floating capacitor layer 50 retained in a floating state in the dielectric layer 40. The sheet-shaped structure is used as part of a base substance of the antenna device. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an antenna device using a sheet-like structure having a high surface impedance and an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag.

  With recent miniaturization of devices, for example, the distance between a metal surface such as a ground plane and an antenna is shortened, and there is a concern about deterioration of antenna characteristics due to this. It is also known that when an RFID tag is attached to a metal surface, the characteristics of an antenna included in the RFID tag are remarkably deteriorated and the RFID tag does not function properly. These problems are all due to the low surface impedance of the metal surface. On the other hand, it is known that when an element having a high surface impedance is disposed in the vicinity of the antenna, the energy incident on the impedance surface is reflected in the same phase by the high surface impedance and the antenna performance is improved.

  As a sheet-like structure having a high impedance, a sheet-like structure having a so-called mushroom-like conductor having a via is conventionally known (for example, see Patent Document 1). On the other hand, a left-handed medium that is not limited to an antenna use and that does not require a via and has scalability exceeding the limit of via density (for example, see Patent Document 2) has been proposed.

US Pat. No. 6,538,621 JP 2006-245984 A

  An object of this invention is to provide the antenna device and RFID tag which consist of a combination of a new sheet-like structure and an antenna.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, in an antenna device comprising a sheet-like structure, an antenna layer having an antenna conductor pattern, and an antenna support layer made of a dielectric formed on the sheet-like structure. ,
The sheet-like structure has a periodic structure in which unit structures are repeatedly arranged in a predetermined direction, thereby increasing the surface impedance for a specific frequency band, and thereby reflecting in-phase incident waves having frequencies belonging to the specific frequency band. Yes,
The unit structure includes a ground layer, a via extending perpendicularly from the ground layer, a top layer connected to the ground layer by the via, and a dielectric layer filled between the top layer and the ground layer. Thus, an antenna device is obtained which is composed of a floating capacitor layer held in a floating state in the dielectric layer, and the ground layer, the via, the top layer, and the floating capacitor layer are conductors.

  According to the second aspect of the present invention, there is obtained the antenna device according to the first aspect, in which a slit for increasing an inductance component is provided in a part of the unit structure.

  According to the 3rd aspect of this invention, the antenna apparatus as described in a 2nd aspect formed by providing the said slit in the said floating capacitor layer is obtained.

  According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, there is obtained the antenna device according to the third aspect, wherein the slit is formed so as to extend from one side of the floating capacitor layer toward the inner surface.

  According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, the sheet-like structure includes the antenna device according to any one of the first to fourth aspects, and an IC connected to the antenna conductor pattern on the antenna support layer. An RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag whose body is part of the tag base is obtained.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the antenna apparatus which has favorable antenna performance can be obtained.

  In particular, when a slit is provided in the unit structure, the inductance in the unit structure can be increased. This means that the resonance frequency of the LC parallel resonance circuit, which is an equivalent circuit when the unit structure is viewed from the direction perpendicular to the main surface, is lowered. Therefore, the sheet-like structure can be miniaturized as understood by considering the scaling rule.

  In addition, when the resonance frequency is the same, the larger the inductance component and the smaller the capacitance component, the larger the surface impedance and the wider the frequency range in which in-phase reflection can be obtained.

(First embodiment)
1 and 2, an RFID tag to which the antenna device according to the first embodiment of the invention is applied includes a sheet-like structure 1, an antenna support layer 2 formed on the sheet-like structure 1, and The antenna element 3 has a predetermined antenna conductor pattern 3a on the upper surface of the antenna support layer 2, and the IC 4 is connected to the antenna conductor pattern 3a. In this sheet-like structure example, the unit structures are two-dimensionally arranged, but the unit structures may be one-dimensionally arranged in a line.

  As understood from FIG. 2, the antenna element 3 in the RFID tag according to the embodiment of the present invention is a dipole antenna including an antenna conductor pattern 3a that extends symmetrically in the longitudinal direction of the sheet-like structure 1 with the IC 4 as the center. is there. The antenna element 3 in this embodiment is further provided with a beam portion conductor 3b for connecting the antenna conductor pattern 3a extending symmetrically for impedance matching. In FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the actual dielectric material may be a relatively transparent material (at least the inside can be seen through), but for the sake of simplicity, it is depicted as not transmitting.

  As a material for the antenna support layer 2, a general resin such as PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) or PET-G (Polyethylene terephthalate Glycol) or a dielectric such as plastic can be used. The foam material, sponge, urethane, fiber, foamed polyethylene, acrylic foam and the like are preferable. In particular, the air layer and the holes concentrate the electric field in the air and lower the electric field in the material, which is effective in reducing the loss.

  The sheet-like structure 1 according to the present embodiment generally increases the surface impedance for a specific frequency band by a periodic structure in which unit structures as shown in FIG. 4 are repeatedly arranged as shown in FIG. An incident wave having a frequency belonging to a specific frequency band is reflected in phase.

  Specifically, the sheet-like structure 1 in the present embodiment includes a ground layer 10 having a solid conductor pattern and a via 20 made of a conductor extending perpendicularly from the ground layer 10 as understood from FIGS. 3 to 5. A top layer 30 having a predetermined conductor pattern electrically connected to the ground layer by the via 20, a dielectric layer 40 filled between the top layer 30 and the ground layer 10, and a dielectric for increasing the capacitance. A floating capacitor layer 50 made of a predetermined conductor pattern held in a floating state in the layer 40 is provided. 3 and 4, the dielectric layer 40 is omitted in order to clarify the relationship between the components.

(Second Embodiment)
The antenna device according to the second embodiment of the present invention has substantially the same structure as that of the first embodiment described above except that the structure of the sheet-like structure, particularly the floating capacitor layer, is different. Accordingly, the same components as those in the first embodiment are denoted by the same reference numerals in the drawings, and the description thereof is omitted.

  As understood from FIGS. 6 and 7, the floating capacitor layer 50a in the present embodiment is provided with a slit 52a. Specifically, as understood from FIG. 7, a meander shape is formed by inserting slits 52a on two opposite sides of the floating capacitor layer 50a. With this shape, the current flow path becomes longer, so that more inductance components can be obtained. In addition, the slit should just increase an inductance component, and the shape of a slit etc. are not limited to this Embodiment.

  Hereinafter, an increase in inductance component and its effect will be described.

  FIG. 8 represents the unit structure described above with an equivalent circuit. The unit structure described above may be expressed by an equivalent circuit as shown in FIG.

  When viewed from a plane wave incident on the unit structure from the upper surface of the top layer 30, the equivalent circuits shown in FIGS. 8 and 9 can be simply approximated to an LC parallel resonant circuit in an appropriate frequency range.

Here, the surface admittance Ys (reciprocal of the surface impedance Zs) of the surface approximated by the LC parallel resonance circuit having the inductance L and the capacitance C can be expressed by the following formula (1). ω is an angular frequency, and j is an imaginary unit.

When the equation (1) is differentiated by ω, the following equation (2) is obtained.

Here, when the resonance angular frequency of the LC parallel circuit is ω ₀ and Equation (2) is modified using Equation (3) below, Equation (4) is obtained.

From equation (4), the amount of change of the surface admittance Ys in the vicinity of ω _{0 with} respect to the change in ω is obtained as in equation (5).

  As apparent from the equation (5), in the LC parallel resonance circuit, the amount of change with respect to the frequency change of the surface admittance at the resonance frequency is smaller as C is smaller (L is larger) and becomes j2C. That is, the surface impedance Zs, which is the reciprocal of the surface admittance Ys, also decreases with respect to the frequency as C decreases (as L increases) (see FIG. 10).

FIG. 10 shows frequency characteristics of the surface impedance Zs that is the reciprocal of the surface admittance shown in the equation (1).

As shown in FIG. 10, in the frequency range where the absolute value of the surface impedance Zs is large, if the product of LC is constant, that is, if the resonance frequency ω ₀ is constant (L × C is constant), L is large and C is small. It turns out that it becomes wide.

  Therefore, if the LC parallel resonant circuit is formed by a combination of a small capacitance and a large inductance as shown in FIG. 11, a broadband common-mode reflection effect can be obtained.

  According to the present embodiment, since the slit for increasing the inductance component is provided in the floating capacitor layer 50a, a frequency region exhibiting a high surface impedance can be made relatively wide.

(Third embodiment)
The antenna device according to the third embodiment of the present invention has substantially the same structure as that of the first embodiment described above except that the structure of the sheet-like structure, particularly the floating capacitor layer, is different. Accordingly, the same components as those in the first embodiment are denoted by the same reference numerals in the drawings, and the description thereof is omitted.

  As understood from FIGS. 12 and 13, the floating capacitor layer 50b in the present embodiment has a quadrangular shape. In the first and second embodiments described above, the unit structure is configured to resonate with electric fields in two orthogonal directions, so that the shape of the floating capacitor layer is trapezoidal or triangular. Therefore, the area of the floating capacitor layer per electric field direction cannot be made very large. However, for example, when the polarization direction (direction of the radiated electric field) is one direction as in the antenna 3 shown in FIG. 13 (in the example of FIG. 13, the horizontal direction: the longitudinal direction of the antenna 3), the unit structure By matching the direction of the resonating electric field with the direction of the radiated electric field of the antenna 3, the stray capacitance with respect to the radiated electric field in the longitudinal direction of the antenna 3 can be increased and the common-mode reflection frequency can be lowered. That is, in consideration of the scaling law, the in-phase reflection effect at the resonance frequency of the antenna 3 can be obtained with a smaller unit periodic structure.

  In the example of FIG. 13, the antenna support layer 2 is configured by a sheet-like structure in which unit structures are arranged in a single line in the longitudinal direction of the antenna 3. For example, as shown in FIG. A plurality of unit structure rows formed by arranging a plurality of unit structures in the longitudinal direction of 3 may be used. Also in this case, since the stray capacitance in the longitudinal direction of the antenna 3 can be made larger than the stray capacitance in the short direction of the antenna 3, the same effect as in the case of FIG. 13 can be obtained.

  Further, by providing a slit as shown in the second embodiment in the floating capacitor layer 50b in the present embodiment, the inductance can be increased, thereby reducing the size and widening the common-mode reflection frequency bandwidth. Is possible. The slit only needs to increase the inductance component, and the shape of the slit is not limited to the second embodiment described above.

It is a figure which shows the example which applied the sheet-like structure by the 1st Embodiment of this invention to the RFID tag. FIG. 2 is a top view of the RFID tag shown in FIG. 1. 1 is a perspective view schematically showing a sheet-like structure according to a first embodiment of the present invention. It is a perspective view which shows roughly the unit structure in the sheet-like structure by the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is sectional drawing of the sheet-like structure by the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a perspective view which shows roughly the unit structure in the sheet-like structure by the 2nd Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows schematically the structure which arranged the floating capacitor layer by the 2nd Embodiment of this invention periodically It is a figure which shows the equivalent circuit at the time of seeing the unit structure shown by FIG. 6 from upper direction. It is a figure which shows the equivalent circuit which can be replaced with the equivalent circuit of FIG. It is a figure for demonstrating that the broadband of a high impedance area | region can be achieved by increasing an inductance. It is a figure which shows the conditions on the equivalent circuit for making a high impedance area | region into a broadband. It is a perspective view which shows roughly the sheet-like structure by the 3rd Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows roughly the structure which arranged the floating capacitor layer by the 3rd Embodiment of this invention periodically in a line. It is a figure which shows roughly the structure where the floating capacitor layer by the 3rd Embodiment of this invention was periodically arranged in multiple rows.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Sheet-like structure 2 Antenna support layer 3 Antenna element 3a Antenna conductor pattern 3b Beam part 10 Ground layer 20 Via 30 Top layer 40 Dielectric layer 50 Floating capacitor layer 50a Floating capacitor layer 52a Slit

Claims (5)

In an antenna device comprising a sheet-like structure, an antenna layer having an antenna conductor pattern, and an antenna support layer made of a dielectric formed in the sheet-like structure,
The sheet-like structure has a periodic structure in which unit structures are repeatedly arranged in a predetermined direction, thereby increasing the surface impedance for a specific frequency band, and thereby reflecting in-phase incident waves having frequencies belonging to the specific frequency band. Yes,
The unit structure includes a ground layer, a via extending perpendicularly from the ground layer, a top layer connected to the ground layer by the via, and a dielectric layer filled between the top layer and the ground layer. A floating capacitor layer held in a floating state in the dielectric layer,
An antenna device in which the ground layer, the via, the top layer, and the floating capacitor layer are made of a conductor.   The antenna device according to claim 1, wherein a slit for increasing an inductance component is provided in a part of the unit structure.   The antenna device according to claim 2, wherein the slit is provided in the floating capacitor layer.   The antenna device according to claim 3, wherein the slit is formed to extend from one side of the floating capacitor layer toward an inner surface.   An RFID (1) comprising: the antenna device according to any one of claims 1 to 4; and an IC connected to the antenna conductor pattern on the antenna support layer, wherein the sheet-like structure is a part of a tag base. (Radio Frequency Identification) tag.

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