NIT Rourkela Researchers Develop Advanced Chipless RFID Sensor for Environmental Monitoring
Researchers from the RF & Microwave Systems Group, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering at the National Institute of Technology Rourkela have developed an advanced material-based chipless Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) sensor for real-time environmental monitoring. The innovative sensing technology offers a low-cost, battery-free solution for measuring moisture and temperature, making it a promising alternative to conventional environmental sensors.
The research team designed an 8-bit chipless RFID (CRFID) tag sensor on an FR4 substrate with an operating frequency ranging from 800 MHz to 5 GHz. Measuring just 50 × 50 × 0.75 mm3, the sensor employs a complementary C-shaped resonator architecture integrated with advanced materials such as Kapton HN and graphene. These materials serve as dedicated sensing elements for moisture and temperature, enabling multifunctional environmental sensing.
To evaluate the sensor's performance, the researchers developed two dedicated experimental setups a Moisture Test Box (MTB) and a Greenhouse Test Box (GTB). The sensor demonstrated a maximum frequency shift of 300 MHz in response to varying environmental conditions. The team analysed parameters including resonant frequency, amplitude, and variance to accurately detect changes in moisture and temperature.
The study also incorporated advanced data analysis techniques for enhanced sensing performance. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was employed for feature extraction from linear datasets, while t-distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding (t-SNE) was used for nonlinear data interpretation. Additionally, the sensing materials were characterised using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and dielectric constant measurements across the operating frequency range.
The developed sensor exhibited reliable and reversible performance in detecting environmental changes, highlighting its potential for applications in smart agriculture, greenhouse monitoring, industrial process control, and Internet of Things (IoT)-based sensing systems. Its low-cost, battery-free design makes it an attractive solution for large-scale deployment in resource-constrained environments.
The research findings have been published in the prestigious IEEE Sensors Journal, a Q1-ranked international journal.
The research was carried out by Priyabrata Sethy and Prof. Santanu Kumar Behera from the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, National Institute of Technology Rourkela.
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