Improved UHF-RFID Tag Design and Middleware Implementation for Effective Site Management and Access Control at Construction Site

Abstract

Effective site management and access control are useful aspects to implement at the construction industry. In particular, monitoring personnel, construction materials, and equipment is considered predominant elements at these sites as they constitute more than half of the total project cost. Thus, to provide accurate and timely information of man/materials, UHF-RFID technology integrated with Middleware acts as a pioneering solution for real-time data monitoring. This work develops a new approach to implement the Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) solution through Middleware integrated with the UHF-RFID system. To design a UHF RFID tag, we propose a new platform tolerant Artificial Magnetic Surface (AMC) meta surface integrated tag for tracking man/material at the construction site. The novelties of the proposed tag lie in its improved radiation characteristics and stable high read range performance on different items. The designed tag was fabricated and tested experimentally in a real outdoor scenario by placing it on different items such as personnel and metal objects. At the same time, we developed UHF-RFID system integrated web application through Middleware to provide digital worksite visibility for access control and on/off-site management. Thus, the developed system will act as an automated tool to remotely fetch the information from different working zones at the construction site.