The influence of food composition and tag orientation on UHF RF IDentification

Ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency (RF) labelling is considered to be one of the most promisingtechniques for automatic identification through all food supply chain phases. However, the efficacy of RFIDentification(RFID)systemshasprovencriticalforsomefoodproducts.Inthispapertheroleofthecompositionandthetemperatureofthefoodproductandofthemutuallabel-reader orientation on identification performances is investigated. For this purpose, basic food constituents,prepared as solutions (salts, sugars, organic acids and ethanol) at different concentrations and temperatures,wereconsideredandthentheidentificationresultswerecomparedtothoseobtainedfromwholefoodproducts.The results show how the reading performances of UHF RFID systems are influenced by the consideredparameters. The reading ranges for the identification of critical food products by UHF RFID systems can beestimatedandthenimprovedbyconsideringthecompositionofthefoodproductdirectlyfromthedesignphase.