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A Chipless RFID Based on Multiresonant

High-Impedance Surfaces
Filippo Costa, Member, IEEE, Simone Genovesi, Member, IEEE, and Agostino Monorchio, Fellow, IEEE

AbstractA novel chipless RF identification based on a multiresonant high-impedance surface is proposed. The structure is based
on a finite metallic frequency-selective surface (FSS) comprising
2 2 (30 mm 30 mm) or 3 3 (45 mm 45 mm) unit cells.
The FSS unit cell is formed by several concentric square loop resonators. The thin structure performs deep absorptions of the impinging signal at several resonant frequencies related to the loop
resonators. If one of the printed loops in the unit cell is removed,
the corresponding absorption peak disappears from the reflected
signal giving the possibility of encoding a desired bit sequence.
The proposed structure exhibits some intrinsic advantages, such as
scalability (bit number increase) without any size increase, polarization independence, large read range, and the capability of operating when mounted on metallic objects. A transmission line model
is employed to illustrate the operation principle of the structure,
whereas measurements on realized prototypes are provided to assess the reliability and effectiveness of the proposed design.
Index TermsChipless RF identification (RFID), electromagnetic absorbers, frequency-selective surfaces (FSSs),
high-impedance surface (HIS), metamaterials, RFID mounted on
metal.

I. INTRODUCTION

OST OF RF identification (RFID) applications involving consumer packaged goods, postal items, drugs,
and books can profitably enter in the market only if tag cost
drops to a very low price, including fitting them in place [1],
[2]. The presence of the chip on RFID tag allows it working
at a single frequency with the added value given by its re-programmability. However, since silicon chips are fabricated on
a wafer-by-wafer basis, there is a fixed cost per wafer that
is independent of the integrated-circuit (IC) design thus the
cost of the RFID chip can be estimated based on the required
silicon area for the RFID chip. Hence, with highly optimized
low transistor count application-specific integrated circuits
(ASICs), implemented assembly processes and extremely large
quantities (over 1 billion) of RFID chips sold per annum, a
minimum cost of 5 cents is a reasonable estimate for chipped
RFID tags [3]. Given the inevitable high cost of silicon-chip
RFID tags when compared to optical barcodes, efforts to design

Manuscript received May 26, 2012; revised October 23, 2012; accepted October 26, 2012. Date of publication December 11, 2012; date of current version
January 17, 2013.
The authors are with Department of Information Engineering, University
of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, Italy, and also with the RaSS National Laboratory,
CNIT, 56122 Pisa, Italy (e-mail: filippo.costa@iet.unipi.it; simone.genovesi@iet.unipi.it; a.monorchio@iet.unipi.it).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMTT.2012.2227777

low-cost RFID tags without the use of traditional silicon ASICs

have rapidly emerged.
These tags do not contain a silicon chip, and therefore are
referred to as chipless RFID tags [4], [5]. The primary potential
benefit of the most promising chipless tags is their capability
to be directly printed on products and packaging for 0.1 cents,
thus providing a good alternative for ten trillion barcodes yearly
with something far more versatile and reliable [4]. In addition,
chipless RFID tags do not require a power of 15 dBm at chip
terminals to initiate the communication as a conventional RFID
tag, which means improved read range [5].
The absence of an electronic circuit and the attempt of storing
the information in a compact area pose a challenging task to tag
design. However, it has to be noticed that for many applications,
such as identifying classes of objects, a large ID string is not
necessary. In this case, where only a few dozen or a few hundred
different IDs are required, a chipless RFID tag can represent the
best solution.
Chipless RFIDs employing radio-waves can be classified
into two groups: time-domain (TD) or frequency-domain
(FD)-based tags. Thus far, the only commercially available
chipless RFID is the surface acoustic wave (SAW) tag [1],
[7], [8]. SAW tags, which are TD-based chipless tags, exploit
the unique feature of piezoelectric materials that allows for a
transformation of electromagnetic waves into 100 000 times
slower SAWs. SAW tags are relatively low cost and can be
realized with photolithographic technology, although operation
in the microwave region requires submicron lithography. The
size of the piezoelectric circuit is small, but the occupied area,
as for conventional chip-equipped tags, is directly related to
the dimension of the antenna [9]. Other TD chipless tags based
on left-handed (LH) delay lines have been recently proposed,
but their size is still too large to be competitive [10], [11].
FD-based chipless tags encode data into the spectrum using
resonant structures. Each data bit is usually associated with
the presence or absence of a resonant peak at a predetermined
frequency in the spectrum. These tags have the advantage
of being robust and fully printable, as well as having large
data storage potentials and very low fabrication costs. The
drawbacks of these tags are a large spectrum for data encoding
and a wideband dedicated RFID reader. First spectral based
chipless devices were based on several closely placed antennas
(e.g., dipoles or patches) resonating at different frequencies
[12], [13], but clearly the number of encoded bits depends on
the number of antennas, and as a consequence, the tag size
is proportional to the number of bits. Other spectral chipless
tag configurations are based on different type of resonators
[14][17] printed on commercial substrates, but the proposed

0018-9480/$31.00 2012 IEEE

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147

structures showed problems related with polarization sensitivity, on-metal operation, and size increase proportional to the
number of encoded bits. The configuration proposed by Preradovic et al. [18], [19] is instead based on a different principle:
receiving and transmitting disk monopole antennas are separated by a multiresonating circuit, which encodes the signal.
The tag is able to encode up to 35 bits and it advantageously
receives and retransmits with different polarizations. The total
size is 8.8 cm 6.5 cm, but the tag is not able to operate close
to metallic objects. In addition, it encodes the useful part of the
retransmitted signal on the antenna component part of the radar
cross section (RCS), while the structural component may cause
relevant disturbing reflections [20].
We propose a novel chipless RFID tag exploiting the properties of high-impedance surfaces (HISs) to obtain a compact
tag comprising only a few unit cells of the metasurface. As the
suitable amount of loss is introduced in the resonant structure, a
perfect absorption can be achieved in correspondence of each
resonance frequency [21]. By designing a multiresonant HIS
unit cell [22], several bits can be stored in the structure. The
states total reflection and total absorption encode the 0
and 1 bit, respectively. The proposed structure is low-profile,
compact (up to 4.5 cm ), and it can easily operate on a metallic
structure since it comprises a ground plane.
This paper is organized as follows. The operating principle
of the proposed chipless tag is described in Section II through
a transmission line equivalent circuit. Angular stability of the
proposed tag is addressed in Section III. In Section IV, the RCS
of finite size devices is analyzed. Section V reports some of the
results obtained from a measurement campaign. The read range
of the proposed tag and the received signal as a function of the
input power are illustrated in Section VI. Finally, concluding
remarks are drawn in Section VI.
II. OPERATING PRINCIPLE AND CIRCUIT MODEL
The proposed chipless RFID tag is formed by a finite HIS
comprising only few unit cells. The structure, which is composed by a metallic frequency-selective surface (FSS) over a
thin grounded dielectric slab, is basically a subwavelength resonant cavity characterized by an input impedance approaching
to infinite and a reflection phase crossing zero at the resonance.
If the suitable amount of loss is introduced in the resonant structure, a perfect absorption can be achieved at the resonance frequency. In order to create a multiresonant structure able to operate as a chipless RFID, a multiring element is employed as
the unit cell of the FSS. A 3-D sketch of the proposed tag is reported in Fig. 1(a). The nested rings are 0.468-mm wide and
are separated by a gap of the same size. The periodicity of
the unit cell is equal to 15 mm. The chosen substrate is FR4
with a thickness of 1.6 mm.
The surface impedance
of the multiresonant HIS structure
is equal to the parallel connection between the FSS impedance
and the surface impedance of the grounded dielectric slab

(1)

Fig. 1. (a) 3-D sketch of the chipless RFID comprising 2 2 unit cells
mm. (b) Equivalent-circuit model. Each
(3 cm 3 cm).
series is related to the particular th ring of the unit cell.

The thin grounded dielectric slab behaves as an inductor if its

thickness is lower than
and its input impedance at normal
incidence reads [23]
(2)
is the characteristic impedance
where
of the slab,
is the propagation constant,
is the free-space impedance, and
refers to the free-space
wavenumber.
A single ring-shaped FSS array behaves as a capacitor in
the low-frequency region and its impedance becomes inductive
after the resonance; hence, the impedance of a single resonant
FSS can be readily modeled with a series LC circuit. Consequently, the impedance of a multiring FSS is a multiresonant
structure and the number of resonances depends on the number
of rings. Its impedance is capacitive before every resonance and
inductive after it.
Let us now consider, for simplicity, a unit cell comprising two
square loops only. In this case, the FSS impedance can be represented through a shunt connection of a two series LC resonators

(3)

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Fig. 2. Reflection coefficient of an infinite HIS comprising a double square

loop unit cell on top of a 1.6-mm FR4 substrate.

where
and
are lumped parameters characterizing
the first and second ring resonator. The capacitance of a periodic pattern printed on a lossy substrate is not purely real, but
it has an imaginary part represented by a parallel resistor [23],
which takes into account the energy dissipated inside the capacitor [24]. As a consequence, the FSS impedance is characterized by a real and an imaginary part, as apparent in (3). For an
ideal lossless structure, the real part of the input impedance
is zero and the reflection coefficient magnitude always equals
to one. The input impedance of a actual HIS structure realized
with a low-loss substrate is instead characterized by a very high
real part and by the typical smoothed transition through zero of
the imaginary part [25]. A very high real part leads to a limited amount of reflection losses. As the real part of the input
impedance
decreases down to the free-space impedance,
the HIS structure performs an increasing absorption of the incoming signal. When the resonance condition of the HIS structure
is fulfilled [25], the real part of
simplifies as
follows [21]:
(4)
The term in (4) is directly proportional to the imaginary part of
the substrate input impedance
and it is inversely proportional
to the FSS resistor .
In Fig. 2, the reflection coefficient of an infinite FSS with
a unit cell comprising two square loops printed on top of a
1.6-mm-thick FR4 substrate is analyzed both by full-wave simulations and with the equivalent circuit in order to verify its accuracy. The periodicity of the FSS is 15 mm. The inductances
and the capacitances in the circuit model have been computed
by matching the normal incidence full-wave response of the thin
HIS structure [26]. The retrieved values include the effects of
higher order Floquet modes characterizing the interaction of an
FSS in the close vicinity of a ground plane [21]. The values of
lumped elements can also be computed in freestanding configuration and adjusting them with suitable relations taking into
account the effect of the dielectric permittivity [27] and the thin
dielectric substrate [21]. The resistor takes into account ohmic

Fig. 3. Input impedance of a five-ring FSS printed on top of a grounded 1.6-mm

FR4 substrate.

and dielectric losses, but the latter ones represented by

are
predominant in microwave region. The analytical expression of
at the fundamental resonance is the following [23]:
(5)
represents the capacitance of the periodic structure in
where
freestanding configuration (unloaded capacitance). As the dielectric is highly lossy, the value of the resistor increases. If
the capacitance of the FSS is increased (the gap between square
loop is reduced), the resistor decreases. Once the FSS configuration is chosen (e. g. five loops), as well as the substrate type (e.g.,
FR4), the dielectric resistor is imposed. The substrate thickness
can be tuned to achieve perfect absorption. As a consequence,
the quality factor of the parallel RLC circuit
is imposed and it is typically high.
is intended as parallel
resistor [24].
By adding additional LC series circuits, the equivalent circuit
allows to model HIS with a higher number of resonances. In
Fig. 3, the real and imaginary parts of the HIS input impedance
is reported for a five-ring unit cell printed on top of a 1.6-mm
FR4 substrate. As previously remarked, the perfect absorption
is achieved at every resonance if the real part of the input
impedance equals the free-space impedance. As is evident
from Fig. 3, the value of the real part of the input impedance
is not identical for all of the resonances. The first resonance is
characterized by a higher real part than the higher order ones.
This implies, according to relation (4), that the decrease of the
substrate thickness determines a decrease of the real part of the
input impedance at the first resonance leading to an improved
matching with the free-space impedance. Conversely, the
decrease of the substrate thickness causes a worsening of the
matching at higher order resonances since the input impedance
moves away from the free-space impedance. In relation to this,
it is important to point out a substrate with a suitable thickness
and a proper amount of loss has to be selected to guarantee a
good matching for all resonant frequencies. To this aim, it is
convenient to find the most suitable thickness of the resonator

COSTA et al.: CHIPLESS RFID BASED ON MULTIRESONANT HISs

149

Fig. 4. Example of five bit sequences obtained by employing different unit

cells.

Fig. 6. Reflection coefficient of a infinite HIS comprising a five square loop

unit cell on top of a 1.6-mm FR4 substrate at TE oblique incidence.

Fig. 5. Comparison between the reflection coefficients of the three different bit
sequences obtained with the unit cells shown in Fig. 4.

with a parametric simulation involving few values of substrate

thickness close to the one leading to perfect matching at the
fundamental resonance.
Let us now consider three different FSS unit cells printed on
the top of a 1.6-mm-thick FR4 substrate, each one encoding a
different 5-bit data string. Fig. 4 reports the three unit cells composing the analyzed FSS configurations. In Fig. 5, the reflection
coefficients of the HIS composed by an infinite repetition of the
three unit cells are illustrated.
The presence of the absorption peak encodes the bit 1, while
the absence of it at the expected frequency reveals the presence
of the bit 0. It is apparent that all the absorbing peaks are characterized by a deepness of at least 10 dBi, thus guaranteeing a
good intelligibility of the encoded string.
III. OBLIQUE INCIDENCE PERFORMANCE
The oblique incidence response of the proposed tag is here analyzed to verify the angular stability of the resonance associated
with the encoded information. The problem can be addressed
analytically with the same approach valid at normal incidence
[23]. The input impedance of the absorber can be again computed according to relation (1), but the terms of this relation can
vary at oblique incidence in different manners for TE and TM
polarization.
The position of the resonance frequency depends on the value
of the imaginary parts of the grounded substrate impedance and
the FSS impedance. The former is nearly unaffected by the variation of the incident angle because of the sub-wavelength thickness of the resonator, whereas the latter depends on the FSS unit

Fig. 7. Reflection coefficient of a infinite HIS comprising a five square loop

unit cell on top of a 1.6-mm FR4 substrate at TM oblique incidence.

cell. The thin-loop FSS is characterized by an angular stable

impedance [28]. The reflection coefficient magnitude is instead
related to the real part of the FSS impedance, which varies according to the angular dependence of the FSS capacitance [23]
Figs. 6 and 7 report the reflection coefficient of an infinite multiresonant HIS structure with angular variation from 0 to 60 .
As is evident, the position of the resonances is nearly unaffected by the variation of the incident angle. If a dielectric with
a smaller thickness and a slightly smaller amount of loss than
FR4 (e.g., Getek) were used, the absorbing peak would become
narrower (higher factor) and angular stability would even be
better. The only deleterious effect of oblique incidence is the
onset of an additional resonance peak around 6.5 GHz. However, this spurious resonance is not a real drawback since the
reader knows in advance the frequencies on which the encoded
signal can be present, and therefore can easily neglect this resonance.

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Fig. 8. Monostatic RCS of a finite multiring HIS structure. RCS obtained with
a 2 2 (3 cm 3 cm) and with a 3 3 (4.5 cm 4.5 cm) array is compared.
The reflection coefficient of the infinite structure is also reported for comparison.

Fig. 9. Some of the 2

prototypes.

2 (3 cm

3 cm) and 3

3 (4.5 cm

4.5 cm) realized

IV. FINITE-SIZE TAG

The reflection behavior of the HIS shown in Section III is
maintained even if the structure is made of a finite number of
unit cells. Clearly, the larger is the dimension of the panel, the
larger is the RCS and the read range of the chipless tag. In our
design process, we have analyzed a first structure comprising
nine (3 3) unit cells and a second one with only four unit cells
(2 2). The overall dimensions of the analyzed structures are
4.5 cm 4.5 cm and 3 cm 3 cm, respectively. In the case of
2 2 tag, the overall dimensions are
at the
smallest resonant frequency. In Fig. 8, the simulated monostatic
RCSs of the two analyzed structures are reported.
The frequencies of the resonant peaks coincide with the resonance frequencies evaluated with the infinite approximation regardless of the panel size. The 2 2 structure is characterized
by an average level of RCS of 21 dBm , but the amount of the
scattered power decreases rapidly below the first resonant peak,
i.e., panel size smaller than
.
V. MEASURED RESULTS
In order to verify the reliability of the proposed chipless design, a set of prototypes have been manufactured with a standard
photolithographic technology on a commercial 1.6-mm-thick
FR4 substrate. Some of the measured samples are reported in
Fig. 9.
Measurements have been performed in the FD by using two
wideband horn antennas (Flann DP280) and an Agilent E5071C
vector network analyzer (VNA). Initially we have set the level
of transmitted power equal to 0 dBm. The complex scattering
parameters are measured by placing the two horn antennas at a
distance of 55 cm from the tag in a nonanechoic environment.
In order to cancel out the undesired reflections due to multipath propagation and to remove the effect of the interrogating
antennas, two reference measurements with no tag and with a
metallic plate of the same dimension of the tag have been preliminary done.

Fig. 10. Measured reflection coefficient of two different tags comprising 3 3

unit cells (4.5 cm 4.5 cm). The tags encode the two bit sequences 10011
and 11111. Input power: 0 dBm.

Following the well-established normalization procedure described in [28], the measured complex
of the chipless tags
are subtracted by isolation measurement and divided by the
of the metallic rectangular plate measurement. The measurement method based a VNA is not optimized and it is only useful
to verify the proposed concept. Noticeably, in a real situation,
this normalization is not possible and a reader able to read the
bit sequence with the reflection coefficient only should be designed. An example of reader is the one reported in [30].
The measured reflection coefficient obtained for two 3 3
tags (4.5 cm 4.5 cm) encoding different bit sequences is reported in Fig. 10. The bit sequence can be easily recognized
since the resonant absorbing peaks are characterized by an average deepness of 10 dB. The reflection coefficients obtained
with an input power of 0 dBm agree very well with the simulated ones.
As an additional example, the measured reflection of a 10-bit
tag attached on a book cover is also reported in Fig. 11. The

COSTA et al.: CHIPLESS RFID BASED ON MULTIRESONANT HISs

Fig. 11. Measured reflection coefficient of a 3 3 tag (4.5 cm 4.5 cm) encoding a 10-bit sequence attached on a book cover. The tag encodes the bit
sequences 1010111111. The infinite simulation is reported for comparison.
Input power: 0 dBm.

151

Fig. 13. RCS of a 3 3 (45 mm 45 mm) chipless tag estimated from measured data by using relation (6) compared with the simulated result. The measured RCS of the PEC plane of equivalent dimension is also reported.

structure, it is interesting to evaluate the performance of the tag

when the input power is varied, thus inferring the achievable
read range.
VI. READ RANGE

Fig. 12. Comparison of the measured reflection coefficient obtained with the
2 2 (3 cm 3 cm) and 3 3 tags (4.5 cm 4.5 cm). The tags encode the
same bit sequence 11111.

agreement between simulation and measurement is also excellent in the presence of low-reflective backing objects.
In Fig. 12, the reflection coefficient obtained with the 2 2
(3 cm 3 cm) structure is compared with the one of the 3 3
(4.5 cm 4.5 cm) structure for the bit sequence 11111.
The readability of the bit sequence is very good above 3 GHz
for both the structures, but the first resonant peak in the 2 2
structure is seriously deteriorated. The first resonance of the
2 2 tag is not detectable with our measurement setup since
the received power is below the sensitivity of the receiver. This
is due to the low RCS of the structure in this frequency range
(below 25 dBm ). The resonance could be detected by using
the phase of the reflection coefficient or by slightly increasing
the transmitted power (e.g., 10 dBm). In order to understand
the advantages and the limitations of this kind of chipless RFID

As pointed out in [5], the read range of a chipless tag is not

limited by power constraints on the signal power reaching the
tag as it happens for a conventional tag equipped with monolithic chip. Indeed, a key point of a passive IC tag is that it must
have a dc power source. A rectifier circuit followed by a charge
pump circuit is used to extract dc power from the readers transmitted signal. In addition, the powering signal may be easily interrupted and/or attenuated below the critical threshold level in
real-world reading environments and this further restricts read
range and overall reliability. The read range of conventional
tags is basically determined by the required power (typically
1520 dBm) at the terminals necessary to activate the chip. On
the contrary, the read range of a chipless tag is directly related to
the sensitivity of the receiver. As a consequence, the evaluation
of the read range can be performed by using the conventional
radar equation formula as follows:
(6)
is the transmitted power, is the wavelength, and
are the gains of the interrogating antennas.
represents the sensitivity of the receiver, i.e., the minimum power a
receiver can detect. The RCS of the RFID tag, , is directly related to the size of the tag as apparent in Fig. 8. The RCS, , can
be experimentally estimated from the measured data as follows:

where

(7)
where is the distance between the interrogating antenna and
the chipless tag and
represents the square root of received
over transmitted power.

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designing an ad hoc reader that transmits and receives only at

the frequencies where the absorbing peaks are expected.
The curves in Fig. 14 show the possibility to detect a chipless
tag from 3 to 9.5 m if the input power of the transmitter is set at
different power levels, starting from 0 dBm. In order to evaluate
the received signal when the input power is reduced, the reflection coefficient measured at 55 cm with different input power
levels is reported in Fig. 15 for a chipless tag encoding the bit
sequence 10011. Obviously, as the input power of the transmitter decreases, the received bit sequence becomes noisy and
less clear. However, the signal received when an input power of
30 dBm is delivered by the transmitter is noisy, but still detectable.
VII. CONCLUSION

Fig. 14. Read range estimated by employing relation (6). Experimental curves
are obtained by using the RCS of the PEC shown in Fig. 13. Analytical curves
are obtained employing a value of 17 dBm of RCS.

A novel chipless RFID tag based on a multiresonant HIS has

been presented. The tag consists of a 2 2 (3 cm 3 cm) or
3 3 (4.5 cm 4.5 cm) array of multiring FSS printed over
grounded dielectric slab. By exploiting the intrinsic losses of
the chosen substrate, it is possible to achieve a strong absorption in correspondence of every resonance frequency of the HIS.
The operating principle of the structure is explained through
an efficient circuit model approach. Experimental validations
of the structure are presented together with practical considerations about the read range. The advantages of the proposed design are: 1) scalability (a high number of nested rings can be
included without increasing the size of the tag); 2) polarization
insensitivity; and 3) robustness (the signal strength difference
between zeros and ones exceeds 10 dB). It is also worth underlining that the proposed chipless tag can also efficiently operate
when mounted on metallic objects.
REFERENCES

Fig. 15. Measured reflection coefficient of a tag comprising nine unit cells
(3 345 mm 45 mm) for different input power levels. The tags encode the
bit sequence 10011.

An estimate of
obtained by employing relation (7) for
chipless tag encoding the sequence 11111 or a perfect electric
conductor (PEC) object with the same dimension of the tag
is reported in Fig. 13 together with the simulated curve. The
measured data are deteriorated by the strong mutual coupling
between transmitting and receiving horn antennas. In order
to eliminate part of this noise, the
is obtained as the subtraction of
measured in presence of the tag and
in
the absence of it. Fig. 14 reports the read range estimated by
employing the measured RCS reported in Fig. 13 compared
against the curves obtained supposing a realistic RCS value of
17 dBm . As apparent, the read range improves as the power
delivered by the transmitters increases. The read range obtained
is a function of the gain of the horn antenna used as reference
antenna. The gain of the reference antenna is approximately
8 dBi at 2 GHz and it increases up to 13.3 dBi at 8 GHz.
The performance of the system can be greatly improved by

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integrated resistive and capacitive sensors, in Proc. AsiaPacific Microw. Conf., 2011, pp. 13541356.
[20] A. Lazaro, A. Ramos, D. Girbau, and R. Villarino, Chipless UWB
RFID tag detection using continuous wavelet transform, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 10, pp. 520523, May 2011.
[21] F. Costa, S. Genovesi, A. Monorchio, and G. Manara, A circuit-based
model for the interpretation of perfect metamaterial absorbers, IEEE
Trans. Antennas Propag., accepted for publication.
[22] X. Shen, T. J. Cui, J. Zhao, H. Feng Ma, W. Xiang Jiang, and H. Li, Polarization-independent wide-angle triple-band metamaterial absorber,
Opt. Exp., vol. 19, no. 10, pp. 94019407, Oct. 2011.
[23] F. Costa and A. Monorchio, Closed-form analysis of reflection losses
of microstrip reflectarray antennas, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag.,
vol. 60, no. 10, pp. 46504660, Oct. 2012.
[24] G. L. Johnson, Solid State Tesla Coil. Manhattan, KS: Kansas State
Univ., Dec. 2001, Lossy Capacitors, ch. 3.
[25] F. Costa, A. Monorchio, and G. Manara, Analysis and design of ultra
thin electromagnetic absorbers comprising resistively loaded high
impedance surfaces, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 58, no. 5,
pp. 15511558, May 2010.
[26] F. Costa, A. Monorchio, and G. Manara, An equivalent-circuit modeling of high impedance surfaces employing arbitrarily shaped FSS,
in Int. Electromagn. Adv. Appl. Conf., Turin, Italy, Sep. 1418, 2009,
pp. 852855.
[27] F. Costa, A. Monorchio, and G. Manara, Efficient analysis of frequency selective surfaces by a simple equivalent circuit model, IEEE
Antennas Propag. Mag., vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 3548, Aug. 2012.
[28] B. A. Munk, Frequency Selective Surfaces-Theory and Design. New
York: Wiley, 2000.
[29] W. Wiesbeck and D. Kahny, Single reference, three target calibration
and error correction for monostatic, polarimetric free space measurements, Proc. IEEE, vol. 79, no. 10, pp. 15511558, Oct. 1991.
[30] R. V. Koswatta and N. C. Karmakar, A novel reader architecture based
on UWB chirp signal interrogation for multiresonator-based chipless
RFID tag reading, IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Techn., vol. 60, no.
9, pp. 29252933, Sep. 2012.

153

Filippo Costa (S07M10) was born in Pisa, Italy,

on October 31, 1980. He received the M.Sc. degree in
telecommunication engineering and Ph.D. degree in
applied electromagnetism in electrical and biomedical engineering, electronics, smart sensors, and nanotechnologies from the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy,
in 2006 and 2010, respectively.
From March to August 2009, he was a Visiting
Researcher with the Department of Radio Science
and Engineering, Helsinki University of Technology,
TKK (now Aalto University), Espoo, Finland. Since
January 2010 he has been a Postdoctoral Researcher with the University of
Pisa, Pisa, Italy. His research is focused on the analysis and modeling of
FSSs and artificial impedance surfaces with emphasis to their application in
electromagnetic absorbing materials, antennas, radomes, RFID, waveguide
filters and techniques for retrieving dielectric permittivity of materials.
Simone Genovesi (S99M07) received the Laurea
degree in telecommunication engineering and Ph.D.
degree in information engineering from the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, in 2003 and 2007, respectively.
Since 2003, he has collaborated with the Electromagnetic Communication Laboratory, Pennsylvania
State University, University Park. From 2004
to 2006, he was a Research Associate with the
ISTI Institute, National Research Council of Italy
(ISTI-CNR), Pisa, Italy. He is currently an Assistant
Professor with the Microwave and Radiation Laboratory, University of Pisa.
His research is focused on metamaterials, antenna optimization, and evolutionary algorithms.
Agostino Monorchio (S89M96SM04F12)
received the Laurea degree in electronics engineering
and Ph.D. degree in methods and technologies for
environmental monitoring from the University of
Pisa, Pisa, Italy, in 1991 and 1994, respectively.
During 1995, he joined the Radio Astronomy
Group, Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory, Florence, Italy, as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow,
where he was involved in the area of antennas
and microwave systems. He has collaborated with
the Electromagnetic Communication Laboratory,
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, and is an Affiliate of the
Computational Electromagnetics and Antennas Research Laboratory. He has
been a Visiting Scientist with the University of Granada, Granada, Spain, and
with the Communication University of China, Beijing, China. He is currently
an Associate Professor with the School of Engineering, University of Pisa,
and Adjunct Professor with the Italian Naval Academy, Livorno, Italy. He
is also an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Pennsylvania State University. He is on the Teaching Board of the Ph.D.
remote sensing course and the council of the Ph.D. School of Engineering
Leonardo da Vinci, University of Pisa. He has been a Reviewer for many
scientific journals and he has supervised various research projects related to
applied electromagnetic, commissioned and supported by national companies
and public institutions. His research interests include the development of
novel numerical and asymptotic methods in applied electromagnetics, both
in frequency and time domains, with applications to the design of antennas,
microwave systems, and RCS calculation, the analysis and design of FSSs and
novel materials, and the definition of electromagnetic scattering models from
complex objects and random surfaces for remote-sensing applications.
Dr. Monorchio has served as an associate editor for the IEEE ANTENNAS AND
WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS. He was the recipient of a Summa Foundation Fellowship and a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Senior Fellowship.