Title: Performance characterisation for two radio frequency identification inventory readers within a university library environment

Authors: Paul Golding, Vanesa Tennant

Addresses: School of Computing and Information Technology, University of Technology, Jamaica, 237 Old Hope Road, Kingston 6, Jamaica. ' School of Computing and Information Technology, University of Technology, Jamaica, 237 Old Hope Road, Kingston 6, Jamaica

Abstract: Performance testing is an integral aspect of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) application, with users| anticipation of near 100% accuracy rate. A review of a number of academic research databases has shown sparse empirical research on RFID testing in a library environment. This study investigates factors that may affect the read rate of an inventory reader in a library. The factors investigated in this study were read distance, tag location, number of sweeps and sweep direction. This methodology applied a systematic approach to investigate the performance of two inventory readers using design of experiment. A 2^k−1 fractional factorial experiment, where k is the number of factors investigated, was used to determine the relationship between independent factors (k = 5) and the performance of the RFID reader, measured by the read rate. It is anticipated that the findings may help researchers and library practitioners to understand and further investigate methods to optimise the performance of the reader and spur the need for investigation of other factors.

Keywords: RFID; radio frequency identification; performance evaluation; inventory readers; library systems; university libraries; academic libraries; higher education; read distance; tag location; number of sweeps; sweep direction.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRFITA.2011.039786

International Journal of Radio Frequency Identification Technology and Applications, 2011 Vol.3 No.1/2, pp.107 - 123

Published online: 13 Mar 2015 *

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