Design and Evaluation of an RFID Localization System based on Read Count

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new robust algorithm to improve the localization accuracy without using additional materials. This algorithm is based on a probabilistic approach which only uses the read count (number of detection) of reference and target tags. The localization is performed through two steps. The first step consists of estimating a local position of object tags in a given zone, while in the second step, all estimated local positions are used to calculate one global position. Furthermore, a complementary study concerning the influence of reference tags positions, the movement nature and the coverage of the work area is presented and discussed. For the proof of concept, a series of tests were elaborated with the proposed localization system created comprising conventional passive EPCglobal Class-1 Gen-2 UHF RFID tags, a commercial UHF RFID reader and a laptop. Measurements are carried out in an indoor environment where the 5.5 m×1.25 m measurement zone was placed on drywalls. The experimental results show that the present algorithm gives higher localization accuracy than the conventional ones.

Keywords:

• Localization RFID
• Presence probability
• Read count
• Reference tags

Additional information

Notes on contributors

El Hachemi Hadj-Mihoub-Sidi-Moussa

Hadj-Mihoub-Sidi-Moussa received his electrical engineering degree from the Military Polytechnic School (Bordj-el-Bahri, Algeria) in 2005 and his master in 2012. Currently, he is pursuing his doctoral studies in University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene (Bab Ezzouar, Algeria). His working fields are RFID signals filtering and wireless localization systems.

Rachida Touhami

Rachida Touhami obtained the diploma of engineer in electronics and then the master's in microelectronics, respectively, in 1985 and 1989 from the National Polytechnic School (ENP). After years of research devoted to the modeling of submicron structures MOS, she obtained the PhD degree in microelectronics from the same School (ENP). She was promoted to the rank of professor at the Faculty of Electronics and Computer Science in 2006. Touhami is the author and co-author of several scientific publications in her field and currently she is interested in component-related instrumentation applications. Working in microwave bands. Email: [email protected].

Smail Tedjini

Smail Tedjini, Doctor in Physics from Grenoble University in 1985. He was assistant professor at the Electronics Department of Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble-INP) from 1981 to 1986, and senior researcher for the CNRS (Research French National Center) from 1986 to 1993. He became university full professor in 1993 and since 1996, he is professor at the ESISAR, Embedded Systems Department of Grenoble-inp. His main teaching topics concern applied electromagnetism, radio frequency, wireless systems and optoelectronics. He founded the LCIS lab and served as its director. He also served as the director of ESISAR. He supervised more than 35 PhDs, has over 300 publications and patents. Senior Member IEEE, past-president and founder of the IEEE-CPMT French Chapter, vice-president of IEEE Section France and elected as the Vice-Chair of URSI Commission D “Electronics & Photonics” in 2008. He was reelected as vice-chair of IEEE-France section and served as the chair of URSI Commission “D” for the triennium 2011-2014. In 2015, he was elected president of URSI-France. Email: [email protected].