Booster antenna configurations and methods

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9633304-B2
Application number	US-201514948390-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 23, 2015
Priority date	Aug 12, 2010
Publication date	Apr 25, 2017
Grant date	Apr 25, 2017

Abstract

A booster antenna (BA) for a smart card comprises a card antenna (CA) component extending around a periphery of a card body (CB), a coupler coil (CC) component at a location for an antenna module (AM), and an extension antenna (EA) component contributing to the inductance of the booster antenna (BA). At least one of the components may have a pitch which is different than one or more of the other components. A method of wire embedding is also disclosed, by controlling a force and ultrasonic power applied by an embedding tool at different positions on the card body (CB).

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. Booster antenna (BA) comprising the following components:
a card antenna (CA) component;
a coupler coil (CC) component; and
an extension antenna (EA) component;
characterized in that:
at least one of the components has a pitch which is different than one or more of the other components.

2. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the card antenna (CA) component has an outer winding (OW) and an inner winding (IW).

3. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the pitch of the outer and inner windings are substantially the same as one another.

4. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the pitch of the outer and inner windings are different than one another.

5. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
at least one of the components comprises an outer winding (OW, ow) and an inner winding (IW, iw).

6. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the card antenna component has a pitch of approximately 200 μm.

7. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the coupler coil (CC) component has a pitch of approximately 150 μm.

8. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the booster antenna comprises wire having a diameter; and
the pitch of at least one of the components is approximately 2× (twice) the diameter of the wire, resulting in a spacing between adjacent turns of components on the order of 1 wire diameter.

9. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the coupler coil (CC) and extension antenna (EA) components are combined with one another, as a coil, wherein the turns increase in pitch as the combined CC/EA booster antenna component extends across an area of a card body (CB) of a smart card (SC).

10. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the pitch of the extension antenna (EA) component varies as it extends across an area of a card body (CB) of a smart card (SC).

11. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the pitch of the extension antenna (EA) component is different than the pitch of the coupler coil (CC) component.

12. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
at least one of the extension antenna (EA) and coupler coil (CC) components have pitches different than that of the card antenna (CA) component.

13. A smart card (SC) incorporating the booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 .

14. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the extension antenna (EA) component lowers the resonance frequency of the booster antenna BA to a desired resonance.

15. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the pitch of individual turns of the extension antenna (EA) are adjusted to match the booster antenna (BA) resonance frequency.

16. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , wherein:
the extension antenna (EA) concentrates the electromagnetic field when in close coupling proximity to an external contactless reader.

17. The booster antenna (BA) of claim 1 , further comprising:
at least one additional extension antenna (EA) component.

Assignees

• Finn David
• Ummenhofer Klaus
• Féinics Amatech Teoranta

Inventors

• Finn David
• Ummenhofer Klaus

Classifications

• H01Q7/00

  Loop antennas with a substantially uniform current distribution around the loop and having a directional radiation pattern in a plane perpendicular to the plane of the loop · CPC title

• H05K1/0239

  Signal transmission by AC coupling · CPC title

• H01F38/14

  Inductive couplings {(for wireless supply or distribution of electric power using inductive coupling H02J50/10)} · CPC title

• H01Q1/2216

  used in interrogator/reader equipment · CPC title

• G06K19/07794

  the record carrier comprising a booster or auxiliary antenna in addition to the antenna connected directly to the integrated circuit · CPC title