Numerical study on left-handed transmissions line incorporated inside large area flooring tiles for RFID signal transmission

We propose an RFID signal transmission scheme that uses flooring tiles as a transmission medium. The method enables delivering RFID signals through a chain of flooring tiles patched together without electrical contact, thus easily extendable into a large scale. Potential applications include human flow monitoring in a large indoor situation by reading signals from numbers of distributed detectors labeled by RFID. In this paper, as a first step toward that goal, we focus on discussing the implementation of flooring tiles that can transmit signals at 13.56 MHz without electrical contact. To establish such transmission, we use a technique known as left-handed transmission, which is characterized by distributed series capacitance and shunt inductance. Here we present theoretical and numerical analysis to design such a system. Direct electromagnetic wave simulation of a realistic model reveals low-loss transmission of 0.23 dB/m at around 13 MHz.