Adi Mahmud Jaya Marindra

Project title

Chipless RFID based passive sensors for structural health monitoring

Supervisors

Project description

We are developing chipless RFID-based passive sensors and systems for structural health monitoring. The sensors will be able to detect defects and characterise metallic structures.

Chipless RFIDs are low-cost. They offer simplicity, printability, and durability. They provide multi-resonance frequency signatures over wide bandwidth. Thus, they can carry rich information for sensing.

Methodology

We will use the CST Microwave Studio to design and simulate the chipless RFID based passive sensors. We will test the fabricated sensors on defects such as crack and corrosion samples. In these experiments, we will use two types of sensor reader:

a Vector Network Analyser (VNA) along with broadband antennas, or
a portable Ultra Wideband (UWB) radar transceiver

We will estimate the defect properties. To do this, we will apply feature extraction techniques such as resonant frequency shift and PCA. We will investigate the detection and characterisation capability, sensitivity, and reading distance.

Results

The resonant frequency shift from a chipless RFID sensor is useful in indicating defects such as crack orientation and crack width on a metallic structure.

The chipless RFID sensor works at microwave frequencies. Thus, the sensor is capable of detecting a submillimetre crack. In the practical scenario, there are many influences, from:

material and defect properties
multilayer structure
interferences in the reader system
the environment

We can apply a multiresonance chipless RFID sensor in conjunction with principal component analysis (PCA)-based feature extraction and selection to characterise cracks and corrosions under a coating layer. The chipless RFID sensor reader can be implemented using a portable UWB radar transceiver with a reading distance of up to 15cm.

Publications

Zhang J, Tian GY, Marindra AMJ, Sunny AI, Zhao AB. A Review of Passive RFID Tag Antenna-Based Sensors and Systems for Structural Health Monitoring Applications. Sensors 2017, 17(2), 265.
Marindra AMJ, Tian GY. Chipless RFID Sensor Tag for Metal Crack Detection and Characterization. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques 2018, 66(5), 2452-2462.
Marindra AMJ, Tian GY. Multiresonance Chipless RFID Sensor Tag for Metal Defect Characterization Using Principal Component Analysis. In: IEEE Sensors Journal 2019, 19(18), 8037–8046.

Conference publications

Sutthaweekul R, Marindra AMJ, Tian GY. Study of microwave responses on layered woven CFRP composites. In: 9th International Conference on Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ICITEE) 2017, Phuket, Thailand.
Marindra AMJ, Sutthaweekul R, Tian GY. Depolarizing Chipless RFID Sensor Tag for Characterization of Metal Cracks Based on Dual Resonance Features. In: 10th International Conference on Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ICITEE) 2018, Hunan, China. Best Paper Award.