Author(s)

Jean-Marc Laheurte¹, Aladdin Kabalan¹, Houssam Retima¹, Eric Piedallu¹, Fulvio Michelis², Bérengère Lebental²

¹ESYCOM, Université Paris-Est, UPEMLV, Marne-la-Vallée, France.
²Université Paris-Est, IFSTTAR, COSYS/LISIS, Marne-la-Vallée, France.

This paper describes the design of a battery-assisted Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) Radio-Fre- quency IDentification (RFID) tag suitable for embedding in concrete materials and its measurement in a mortar slab. The device is built to communicate wirelessly not only the ID number of the RFID chip but also the digitalized output of a strain gauge sensor. Design optimizations of the RFID antenna is based on published permittivity and conductivity values of concrete. Experimental read ranges are measured from 800 to 1000 MHz with the help of commercial test equipment. Reading is possible up to 50 cm from the surface of a mortar block for a tag embedded 5 cm below the surface. This result is the first published one for RFID tags embedded in concrete or mortar.

UHF RFID Technologies, Sensing RFID, UHF Tag Antennas, Concrete Monitoring

Laheurte, J. , Kabalan, A. , Retima, H. , Piedallu, E. , Michelis, F. and Lebental, B. (2016) Embedded UHF RFID Tag for Durability Monitoring in Concrete. Wireless Sensor Network, 8, 137-144. doi: 10.4236/wsn.2016.87012.