Differential RCS

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Differential RCS characterizes the aptitude of a tag to modulate the backscattered power. This parameter is has been introduced by P. Nikitin in 2007 for UHF tags [1] and is classically estimated based on the variation of the IQ channels of the two states of the chip in the time domain. This quantity can however be generalized for any modulating tag in the frequency domain. The frequency definition remains (almost) compatible to the time definition. Finally, this new definition allows to estimate the delta RCS of any tag accurately using a simple spectrum analyzer.


Details have been presented in [2] The basic idea relies on the decomposition of the RCS <math>\sigma<\math> into a static RCS <math>\sigma_s<\math> and a dynamical RCS <math>\sigma_d<\math> and to pass into the frequency domain. Also, this frequency definition (as the original definition) is not limited to RFID tags and can be applied to any linear time-varying system.


  1. P. V. Nikitin, K. V. S. Rao, and R. D. Martinez, “Differential RCS of RFID tag,” Electronics Letters, vol. 43, no. 8, pp. 431–432, Apr. 2007.
  2. N. Barbot, O. Rance, and E. Perret, "Differential RCS of modulated tag," IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, pp. 1–1, 2021, early access. doi: 10.1109/TAP.2021.3060943.