Practical Performance Comparison of 1-D and 2-D Decoding Methods for a Chipless RFID System in a Real Environment

A comparison of four decoding methods for a Chipless RFID system was executed by analyzing the read success rate of a frequency-position coding tag with 12-bit of capacity. Scattering parameter measurements have been performed in a real environment, using a fixed antenna, with the tag moving within a 30 × 30 × 30 cm3volume. Optimal parameters have been obtained based on the decoding success rates of the practical measurements, for background calibration, time-gating, Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) and Short Time Prony Analysis (STPA) methods. STFT and time-gating showed the best volume reading performance. Time-gating has been found to be the best decoding method for the chipless RFID system employed, as it presented the best performance amongst the other methods while being a less complex, 1-D, approach.