The very concept of mm-wave RFID strikes most as a, perhaps, rather absurd academic endeavor or, at best, as only to be of interest for applications that require short-range and high data-rate communications. The common narrative goes as follows: Path loss increases as frequency increases and RFIDs are inherently short-range systems. Therefore, any effort striving to develop decently ranging RFID systems is a fool’s errand. The work presented in this seminar flips this idea on its head by bypassing a surprisingly-common misconception about path loss—enabled by the use of electrically-large flexible printed retrodirective antenna structures—and by showing that mm-wave RFID can readily outperform their lower-frequency counterparts in most respects, including range. Applications, taking advantage of the landscape offered by this unusual realization, will then be presented. These unique devices include fully-printed gas-monitoring smart stickers and wallpapers, the longest-ranging battery-less and semi-passive tracking devices ever reported, and long-range energy harvesters for 28 GHz 5G networks. Along with inkjetprinting—the manufacturing technology adopted for the fabrication of nearly all of these devices—the presented innovations are opening a window through which one can witness the upcoming ubiquitous-sensing age of the Internet of Skins.

Location
ELH
American University of Beirut
Beirut, Lebanon
Lebanon 00000
Building: MMasri Building

Speakers
Dr. Jimmy G.D. Hester of Atheraxon
Ms. Aline Eid of Georgia Tech

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