UTAR Master of Engineering Science student Tan Jiun Ian from Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science is the proud recipient of the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society (EPS) Malaysia “Best Engineering Student Award (BESA) 2021”. He received the award for his undergraduate final year project titled Design of Compact Metal Mountable UHF RFID Tag Antenna. He was supervised by LKC FES Centre for Communication Systems and Networks Chairperson Prof Ts Dr Lim Eng Hock along with LKC FES Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering lecturer Dr Lee Yong Hong.

Tan won a total of RM3,000. The money he won will be used to sign up for the IEEE main and IEEE EPS membership as well as purchase a book valued at approximately RM1,000 by IEEE EPS Malaysia Chapter. The book will be donated to the UTAR Library under Tan’s name and IEEE EPS Malaysia Chapter. The balance of the amount will be given to Tan. 

According to Tan, the Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) is one of the Auto Identification (Auto-ID) technologies, which has a high data transfer rate and can deal with multiple tag antennas simultaneously. It uses electromagnetic fields and waves to track and identify objects automatically. The ultrahigh frequency (UHF) band, which is the frequency band of 860-960MHz, is the most commonly used frequency band and it has been widely used in many commercial applications such as electronic payment, warehouse management, access control and logistic tracking.

Tan said, “The objective of my FYP is to design an electrically small UHF RFID tag antenna that can be used to track metallic objects which is very suitable for electronic packaging applications. Besides, my antenna is also able to produce an omnidirectional radiation pattern when being attached to the metallic platform.”

“In recent years, many types of UHF RFID tag antennas have been proposed for on-metal tagging applications. However, almost all of them are directional tag antennas, which have a maximum radiation in a specific direction. As such, these tags are only readable when the reader is in their boresight direction. In contrast, the omnidirectional tag antennas can be read easily from all directions. Currently, there are only two existing RFID tag antennas that can produce an omnidirectional radiation pattern for metallic objects and their read distances are less than six metres. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed tag antenna is the first to use the multi-layer technique to combine four directive beams to form a stable omnidirectional radiation pattern with an achievable read distance of 6.5m in all directions in the azimuth plane when the tag antenna is placed on a metallic surface,” he said and added, “This project has a very high commercial value as the RFID technology can help to reduce the managing costs, improve the management effectiveness and efficiency, enhance the security level and many more. Revolutionising the industries is surely an effective way to boost up the country’s economy.”

Tan expressed, “I would like to express my utmost thanks to my research supervisor, Prof Ts Dr Lim Eng Hock as well as my co-supervisor Dr Lee Yong Hong for assisting and guiding me throughout the development of the research. Their invaluable advice and enormous patience have contributed to the completion of this project.”

The competition was open to full-time and part-time undergraduate students studying in areas broadly related to electrical and electronics engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering, applied physics and chemistry, and other related disciplines. The scopes of the final year projects were within the application of engineering science and technology that focuses on but not limited to design, characterisation, processing, and analysis of semiconductor wafer fabrication and electronic packaging for the betterment of mankind. The selection of three finalists for the said award was carried out at the respective universities. The three finalists were then submitted to the IEEE EPS Secretariat of “Best Engineering Student Award (BESA) 2021” for the selection of the winner. This competition has been organised for the past five years and has received good responses from the institutions of higher learning in Malaysia.

The IEEE Electronics Packaging Society (EPS) is a leading international forum for scientists and engineers engaged in the research, design and development of revolutionary advances in microsystems packaging and manufacturing. Its objectives are scientific, literary, and educational in character. The Society strives for the advancement of the theory and practice of electrical and electronics engineering and the allied arts and sciences.

For the full video of the presentation, click here.