TY - JOUR

T1 - Position tracking for passive UHF RFID tags with the aid of a scanned array

AU - Bouzakis, Antonios

AU - Overmeyer, Ludger

N1 - Funding information: We would like to thank the Hotoprint GmbH for producing the PCB-based antennas. This reasearch was sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG) Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.

PY - 2013/6/23

Y1 - 2013/6/23

N2 - Thanks to the proliferation of radio frequency identification systems (RFID), applications have emerged concerning positioning techniques for inexpensive passive RFID tags. The most accurate approaches for tracking the tag's position, deliver precision in the order of 20 cm over a range of a few meters and require moving parts in a predefined pattern (mechanical antenna steering), which limits their application. Herein, we introduce an RFID tag positioning system that utilizes an active electronically-steered array, based on the principles of modern radar systems. We thoroughly examine and present the main attributes of the system with the aid of an finite element method simulation model and investigate the system performance with far-field tests. The demonstrated positioning precision of 1.5, which translates to under 1 cm laterally for a range of a few meters can be helpful in applications like mobile robot localization and the automated handling of packaged goods.

AB - Thanks to the proliferation of radio frequency identification systems (RFID), applications have emerged concerning positioning techniques for inexpensive passive RFID tags. The most accurate approaches for tracking the tag's position, deliver precision in the order of 20 cm over a range of a few meters and require moving parts in a predefined pattern (mechanical antenna steering), which limits their application. Herein, we introduce an RFID tag positioning system that utilizes an active electronically-steered array, based on the principles of modern radar systems. We thoroughly examine and present the main attributes of the system with the aid of an finite element method simulation model and investigate the system performance with far-field tests. The demonstrated positioning precision of 1.5, which translates to under 1 cm laterally for a range of a few meters can be helpful in applications like mobile robot localization and the automated handling of packaged goods.

KW - Location awareness

KW - RFID

KW - Scanned-array

KW - Tag positioning

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84890564785&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10776-013-0210-z

DO - 10.1007/s10776-013-0210-z

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84890564785

VL - 20

SP - 318

EP - 327

JO - International Journal of Wireless Information Networks

JF - International Journal of Wireless Information Networks

SN - 1068-9605

IS - 4

ER -