The invention relates to a volumetrically efficient solenoid antenna
fabricated on or within a substrate, such as a printed circuit board. The
antenna may be used in many applications requiring a short-range wireless
communication or sensing link, such as RFID systems, badge readers,
contactless connectors, proximity sensors, and short-range data links.
The antenna may be, for example, fabricated on or within a printed
circuit board of an RFID reader, thereby enabling a perpendicular
orientation of the RFID reader with respect to the z-axis of an RFID tag,
where the x-y axes are the length and width of the tag. This
perpendicular orientation enables the user to point or aim the RFID
reader directly at the RFID tag for efficient information transfer
between the reader and a single tag in a multiple tag environment.