Radio Frequency Identification System and Data Reading Method

A system for reading an RFID data tag comprising a plurality of diffractive elements being indicative of machine-readable data carried by the tag, said diffractive elements having such shape that the dimension of said diffractive elements along one axis being substantially different than the dimension of the elements along the perpendicular axis, each diffractive element being oriented in a direction other than the direction of its neighboring elements, the system comprising:

• a transmitting (Tx) antenna configured for emitting an RF radiation signal at a predetermined polarization towards the tag;
• a receiving (Rx) antenna configured for collecting re-radiated RF radiation produced by the tag in response to said RF radiation signal at a polarization orthogonal to the polarization of the transmitting antenna and generating electromagnetic signals indicative of the data carried by the tag;
• and
• an interrogator unit configured for generating the RF radiation signal transmitted towards the tag and processing said electromagnetic signals produced by the receiving antenna for determining the data carried by the tag.

A method for reading data stored in an RFID data tag comprising a plurality of diffractive elements being indicative of machine-readable data carried by the tag, said diffractive elements having such shape that the dimension of said diffractive elements along one axis being substantially different than the dimension of the elements along the perpendicular axis, each diffractive element being oriented in a direction other than the direction of its neighboring elements, the method comprising:

• generating and transmitting an RF radiation signal at a predetermined polarization towards the RFID data tag;
• collecting re-radiated RF radiation produced by the tag in response to the transmitted RF radiation signal at a polarization orthogonal to the polarization of said transmitted RF radiation signal;
• and
• processing said re-radiated RF radiation for determining the data carried by the tag.