Design and Evaluation of a Compact Harmonic Transponder for Insect Tracking
Anastasia Lavrenko, Benjamen Litchfield, Graeme Woodward, Stephen M. Pawson
Abstract
Passive harmonic transponders are used in applications where weight and size restrictions are prohibitive to the use of active radio transmitters, e.g., for insect tracking. A typical harmonic transponder tag consists of a wire dipole antenna and a Schottky diode with a parallel inductance. Despite the simplicity in tag circuit, designing lightweight, compact, and efficient harmonic tags are challenging. In this letter, we describe a design that combines the reliability of a printed circuit with the simplicity and small mass of a wire dipole antenna. We study the interplay of individual system parameters and show that optimizing the tag antenna together with the tuning inductance provides further opportunities for tag miniaturization.