Title: RFID-based indoor positioning system

Authors: John P.T. Mo, Jason J.S. Lee

Addresses: School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. ' School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract: In logistics supply chains, automated guided vehicles are not used owing to the lack of suitable localised positioning systems to guide them. A wide variety of technologies have been researched including vision, sensor networks and radio frequency signals, but there are still issues in cost, accuracy, line of sight and installation of these technologies in situ. This paper describes a low-cost two-dimensional RFID-based positioning system. The position of the RFID reader in two-dimensional space is computed using a weighed function with a localisation exponential function. To find the best value for the localisation exponent, a series of experiments were conducted and the mean error of the expected position was computed on different exponential functions. The research found that the best value for the exponent is 1, and that the accuracy of the system is approximately 76 mm on a 300 mm-spaced RFID array.

Keywords: indoor positioning systems; RFID positioning; AGVs; exponential function; passive RFID arrays; radio frequency identification; automated guided vehicles; AGV guidance; AGV navigation; AGV positioning; AGV localisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRFITA.2011.039788

International Journal of Radio Frequency Identification Technology and Applications, 2011 Vol.3 No.1/2, pp.141 - 154

Published online: 13 Mar 2015 *

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