RFID Tracking Research Articles

Video Enhanced RFID Tracking System

Generally speaking, crimes in which vehicles are used are generally highly organized criminal activities affecting all regions of the world and with clear links to illegal activities and terrorism [3]. Therefore, catching illegal vehicles on the roads is an important preventive measure in security. In this paper, we propose a Video Enhanced RFID Tracking System to monitor the activities of vehicles through the use of readers, tags, and video together. The proposed system retrieves the registered visual properties of vehicles in the environment by querying their RFID tags on the database in the Command Control Center. It processes the video frames simultaneously, and extracts the visual features of detected vehicles. The information collected both from video and RFID database query is then combined in such a way that they validate each other. If an inconsistency is detected in this process an existence of illegal vehicle is found in the environment.

SCPS: A Social-Aware Distributed Cyber-Physical Human-Centric Search Engine

Advances in ubiquitous sensing, computing and wireless communication technologies are leading to the development of cyber-physical systems (CPS), which promise to revolutionize the way we interact with the physical world. CPS applications, such as healthcare monitoring, may involve many users and objects scattered over a wide area. One critical function of CPS is object search in the physical world through the cyber sphere that enables interaction between the cyber and physical spheres. Some of the previously proposed physical object search engines use RFID tracking, and others collect the information of object locations into a hierarchical centralized server. The difficulty of widely deploying RFID devices, the centralized search, and the need for periodical location information collection prevent CPS from achieving higher scalability and efficiency. To deal with this problem, we propose a Social-aware distributed Cyber-Physical human-centric Search engine (SCPS) that leverages the social network formed by wireless device users for object search. Without requiring periodical location information collection, SCPS locates objects held by users based on the routine user movement pattern. Moreover, using a social-aware Bayesian network, it can accurately predict the users’ locations even at the occurrence of exceptional (i.e., non-routine) events (e.g., raining) that break user movement pattern. Thus, SCPS is more advantageous than all previous social network based works which assume that user behaviors always follow a certain pattern. Further, SCPS conducts the search in a fully distributed manner by relying on a distributed hash table (DHT) structure. As a result, SCPS achieves high scalability, efficiency and location accuracy. Extensive real-trace driven simulation results show the superior performance of SCPS compared to other representative search methods including a hierarchical centralized method, a decentralized method, and two social network based methods. The results also show the effectiveness of different components of SCPS.

Typology of configurable RFID tracking in fashion logistics

Typology of configurable RFID tracking in fashion logistics

Regression Analysis for Gesture Recognition Using Passive RFID Technology in Smart Home Environments

Gesture recognition is a field of research that consists in recognizing patterns of movement performed by a human using his body parts with or without the help of a comprehensive device (a mouse, a laser, etc.). This particular area as attracted a number of researchers over the years that applied such algorithms in a broad range of disciplines. In particular, it was exploited on early research initiatives with pervasive environments to enable simple communication with automation systems. Nowadays, those environments are used for more than automation. Many researchers, in fact, believe it is one of the most promising solutions to the problems related to ageing of the population. Smart homes are seen as an alternative to the full-time support of a semi-autonomous person by healthcare professional and thus also a potentially economically viable solution to the rising cost of such support. However, researchers are still facing many challenges in that regards, such as the comprehension of the context and of the ongoing activity of daily living. In that equation, gesture recognition could help extract more information from the collected data and thus reinforce the context modeling. The knowledge extracted could even help with monitoring of more fine-grained activities and with the understanding of normal or abnormal behaviors. Gesture recognition is often considered as a solved problem since the techniques to perform it work well as soon as we can track accurately. However, in smart environment, tracking is very imprecise and hard to achieve with limited technology (i.e. noninvasive sensors). In this paper, we present a novel gesture recognition algorithm that works under uncertainty, and that is scalable to the precision of the tracking system. The algorithm is based on the tracking of passive RFID tags installed on all everyday life objects in a smart environment. A set of experimentation in simulation and in a real smart home environment is presented. The results are very encouraging despite the very low accuracy of the passive RFID tracking system.

New Gripping and Binding Device Greatly Improves Preparation of Natural Clasts for RFID Tracking

AbstractRadio frequency identification technology (RFID) has allowed for tracking of individual clasts implanted with passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags through sedimentary systems, providing recovery rates much higher than older sediment tagging methods such as painted or magnetic clasts. However, preparation of natural clasts for PIT tag implantation has been time-consuming and dangerous with rates of catastrophic failure of clasts of ∼66% or more. Moreover, failure rates increase as clast size decreases. The authors present an improved methodology that provides nearly 100% success rates and allows for drilling of clasts down to 23 mm along the intermediate diameter. The gripping and binding device (GABI) prevents clasts from rotating and is effective when used in conjunction with the rhythmically applied pressure drilling technique. GABI is simple and inexpensive to build and can be used in a field setting. The improved safety and effectiveness of the method will allow for greater application of...

The Research and Design of the RFID Track and Trace System Based on Web Services

This paper analyzes the problems of the modern logistics: track and trace of products, and provides an effective solution that combines with RFID and web services to develop a B/S platform of track and trace of logistics . RFID middleware is adopted in the system implementation process. The paper has done a lot of research in some key technologies in the design ,the manufacturer, the third part of logistics and the retailers are the three key roles, they can both use this system to track and trace products in the Internet.

Application of RFID tracking to the optimization of function-space assignment in buildings

Abstract Function–space assignment, which allocates a function for each space in a facility, is one of the most important factors in determining the usability performance of a building. Most architects renovate a building based on their personal perception of how the occupants might use the building instead of quantitatively analyzing their use behaviors. This study developed a function–space assignment optimization model based on the occupants' movement data as tracked by RFID technology. The model mines the movement data by constructing patterns and calculating the relation values between functions. The search for the best assignment is based on the fast messy genetic algorithm (fmGA) with the objective function incorporating the preference of space size and the minimization of the distance for movement required by the occupants during the performance of their daily activities. The proposed model incorporated building-block filtering mechanism in the fmGA problem-solving process to generate enough copies of the good building blocks so more copies would remain for subsequent processing. The paper also describes two experiments that evaluate the performance of the model and compare the performances of the models with and without the building-block filtering mechanism.

An Active Low Cost Mesh Networking Indoor Tracking System

Indoor radio frequency tracking systems are generally quite expensive and can vary in accuracy due to interference, equipment quality or other environmental factors. Due to these limiting factors of the technology, many businesses today find it hard to justify investing in RFID tracking technologies to improve the safety, efficiency and security of their working environments. The aim of this project was to provide a budget RFID tracking system that was capable of tracking a person or object through an indoor environment. To minimize the cost of the RFID tracking system, the components of the system were built from existing electronic equipment and hardware. The software was also written to minimize licensing and support fees allowing a cost effective budget RFID tracking system to be developed. The tracking system consists of a tag, reader nodes and a PC reader which utilize synapse RF 100 engines with python scripts embedded on to the chips. The tracking system software operates through a web portal utilizing web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript and PHP to allow the tags location to be represented on a two dimensional map using scalable vector graphics. During development of the system a new trilateration algorithm was developed and used convert the signals received from the tag to a virtual position on the map correlating to the actual physical position of the tag. A unique contribution of this system is the low cost of building which we estimate as less than £200 UK sterling for a five node system.

AgCleaning: A Track Data Filling Algorithm Based on Movement Recency for RFID Track Data

For the traditional data cleaning algorithms mainly fill up the data based on the space-time relevance in the data level, they are not suitable for RFID application scenarios with track information based on multi-logical areas. This paper proposed a track data filling algorithm based on movement recency by studying the characteristics of RFID track data. This algorithm maintains a track event tree according to the historical data, to predict the future data and guide the data cleaning. Also it considers the effect on the movement rules from time factor and brings in the ageing factor for maintaining the track event tree, which improved the predict accuracy of the tree and raise the veracity of the filling algorithm.

Variable Number of Multi-Sensor Fusion for Indoor RFID Tracking System

We present a new method to accurately tracking persons indoors by active RFID technology. To deal with nonlinear measurement model, the EKF(extended Kalman filter) is used to estimate the target trajectory. This paper developed the fusion estimation algorithm for the common indoor tracking problem with the reader at any location and fusion estimation with variable number of multi-sensor system. Simulations show the algorithm developed here can adaptively adjust the model parameter while tracking and obtain good estimation performance for indoor RFID tracking.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF MACHINE-CONTROLLED SYSTEM FOR PUBLIC BICYCLE-SHARING IN URBAN AREAS

This paper presents a design of machine controlled intelligent system for public to share bicycles for short distance transportation in urban areas. It allows us to take bicycle from wherever we are and to park at our nearest place of destination. The design schemes used here are automated system for bicycle delivery unit (base station) and bicycle parking unit (substation) and automatic amount collection for the usage from user card (RFID tags) and central administration office (GPS) and solar powered substations (PV solar panels). Moreover, it offers auto-locking racks for bicycles, on-Board vehicle tracking, and battery with solar power management, data logging, and communication with substations and administration. The subscribers can register to this service by administrator of bicycle sharing system. In 2011, the Ministry of Urban Development (MOUD), Government of India, launched the National Public Bicycle Scheme (NPBS) to build capacity for the implementation and operation of cycle sharing systems across the country. This paper outlines the advanced requirements to successfully develop and deploy bicycle sharing system focusing on solar powered battery charging and vending by PV solar panels, rental collection interface, in and out management of bicycles, system equipped with RFID and GPS tracking mechanisms. So bicycle sharing systems has emerged as an innovative form of public transport to provide urban short-distance transportation services by government.

Phase-Based UHF RFID Tracking With Nonlinear Kalman Filtering and Smoothing

In this paper, we present an UHF RFID location tracking system, which is based on measuring the phases of back scattered signals from RFID tag using multiple spatially distributed antennas at a single carrier frequency. The wavelength ambiguity of the phase measurements is resolved by using the extended Kalman filter (EKF) and the Rauch-Tung-Striebel (RTS) smoother, where the state includes the position, velocity and the phase offsets of antennas. The performance of the method is experimentally verified at 890 MHz using a commercially available RFID reader.

Directed by Directionality: Benefiting from the Gain Pattern of Active RFID Badges

Tracking of people via active badges is important for location-aware computing and for security applications. However, the human body has a major effect on the antenna gain pattern of the device that the person is wearing. In this paper, the gain pattern due to the effect of the human body is experimentally measured and represented by a first-order directional gain pattern model. A method is presented to estimate the model parameters from multiple received signal strength (RSS) measurements. An alternating gain and position estimation (AGAPE) algorithm is proposed to jointly estimate the orientation and the position of the badge using RSS measurements at known-position anchor nodes. Lower bounds on mean squared error (MSE) and experimental results are presented that both show that the accuracy of position estimates can be greatly improved by including orientation estimates in the localization system. Next, we propose a new tracking filter that accepts orientation estimates as input, which we call the orientation-enhanced extended Kalman filter (OE-EKF), which improves tracking accuracy in active RFID tracking systems.

Challenges for building RFID tracking systems across the whole supply chain

Abstract. Eventhoughnumerousarticlesandreallifecaseshavehighlightedthebenefitsofradiofrequencyidentification(RFID)trackingforsupplychainmanagementforalmostadecade,companiesareratherslowto implement the technology. This paper concentrates on researching the reasons for the slow adoptionof RFID tracking in the supply chain management using literature review and multiple case studies asthe research methodology. The literature review of the articles classifies different challenges for RFIDtracking implementation and elicits the academic explanations for the slow acceptance of the technology.The conclusion of the literature review is that most of the published articles have been concentrating onpresenting technological obstacles to RFID tracking implementation, while the problems nowadays areincreasingly organizational or inter-organizational. Also companies usually settle for using RFID trackingto improve their operational processes instead of exploiting the full potential in the technology and theincreased visibility for improving managerial processes of the company, or upgrading the efficiency of thewhole supply chain. In addition to the literature review, five RFID tracking case surveys are presented toprovide experience and insights into managerial decisions concerning supply chain-wide RFID trackingsolutions. Followed by the literature review and case studies, this paper presents a framework, whichsuggests three levels, where different potential challenges to supply chain-wide RFID tracking systemimplementations should be handled: the supply chain, inside a company or inside a certain function.Keywords: RFID, supply chain management, tracking, multiple case study, literature review

Distributed inference and query processing for RFID tracking and monitoring

In this paper, we present the design of a scalable, distributed stream processing system for RFID tracking and monitoring. Since RFID data lacks containment and location information that is key to query processing, we propose to combine location and containment inference with stream query processing in a single architecture, with inference as an enabling mechanism for high-level query processing. We further consider challenges in instantiating such a system in large distributed settings and design techniques for distributed inference and query processing. Our experimental results, using both real-world data and large synthetic traces, demonstrate the accuracy, efficiency, and scalability of our proposed techniques.

Development of Java based RFID application programmable interface for heterogeneous RFID system

Developing RFID based applications is a painstakingly difficult endeavor. The difficulties include non-standard software and hardware peripherals from vendors, interoperability problems between different operating systems as well as lack of expertise in terms of low-level programming for RFID (i.e. steep learning curve). In order to address these difficulties, a reusable RFIDTM API ( RFID Tracking & Monitoring Application Programmable Interface) for heterogeneous RFID system has been designed and implemented. The API has been successfully employed in a number of application prototypes including tracking of inventories as well as human/object tracking and tagging. Here, the module has been tested on a number of different types and configuration of active and passive readers including that LF and UHF Readers.

SENSOR AREA NETWORK FOR ACTIVE RTLS IN RFID TRACKING APPLICATIONS AT 2.4GHZ

Power strength or Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), a primary technique used in Real Time Location Systems (RTLS), is analyzed in this paper for RFID tracking applications. Critical issues are studied and hardware novelties are introduced in order to improve its performance. The main novelty is the accomplishment of an RFID RTLS through a mesh of individual active radiofrequency (RF) barriers composed by active emitter and receiver nodes/tags that cover only small individual areas. The result is a Sensor Area Network (SAN) that ofiers some advantages over classical tracking systems, which are based on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), especially in the multipath impairment mitigation, such as a controlled power emission, and the chance to warrant privacy regarding the exchange of RFID information. Experimental measurements were done to estimate the in∞uence of the transmitted signal type and the receiver end architecture in the detection of the RF barrier presence. The parameterization of the coverage area of a SAN cell in terms of power is derived for both free-space and log-distance propagation models. The Kalman flltering technique is introduced as a valid tool to severely mitigate the multipath propagation efiects that can afiect the accurate operation of the proposed SAN for indoor operation conditions. Outcomes show a promising performance for this wireless network design, which has not received enough attention in literature.

Industrial management approaches for improving material control in building services works

PurposeGiven increasing user aspirations for comfort, connectivity, health, safety and security, the building services subsector now plays an even greater role in construction. It also contributes heavily to construction debris. Hypothesising that improved materials control can help reduce construction debris considerably, this paper aims to investigate relevant critical production shortcomings that generate construction debris in building services works.Design/methodology/approachRelevant previous research studies on main causes of waste are first reviewed. Findings from a brainstorming exercise at a focus group meeting provide the basis for a series of structured face‐to‐face interviews with experienced site supervisors. Subsequent analysis of the interview findings, together with deductive reasoning, leads to the development of the proposed improvement strategies.FindingsThe most significant causes of production shortcomings identified in the study are poor coordination of processes or trades, inappropriate site storage and inadequate protection of materials. Industrial management principles help to develop suitable building services storage principles and to propose an industrial flow pattern incorporating barcoding and RFID tracking technologies.Research limitations/implicationsThese findings are a useful comparative reference for other countries, where the study methodology may be replicated to generate region‐specific findings.Originality/valueBy applying the suggested proposals at the material control stage, this important but little studied subsector can both reduce production shortcomings and help lessen the burden on local landfills by reducing “conflicts” between competing resources and storage areas, and by the early mobilisation of specialist contractors to resolve uncertainties and reduce rework.

An intelligent traffic control system using RFID

An architecture for creating intelligent systems for controlling road traffic is proposed. The system is based on a simple principle of RFID tracking of vehicles, can operate in real-time, improve traffic flow and safety, and fully automated, saving costly constant human involvement. The advantages ITCS can provide were demonstrated in detail which vouches for its effectiveness in traffic management systems. However, it is debatable whether monitoring every vehicle is morally acceptable and whether it is a violation of one of the basic civil rights-privacy.

Objects Tracking Utilizing Square Grid Rfid Reader Antenna Network

Recent trend have shown the wide spread of RFID application in various areas in line with the realization of low cost RFID tags and increasing worldwide commonality and compatibility. One of the important RFID applications is in object tracking and positioning due to its ability of high speed contactless identification in non-line of sight (NLOS) shared medium. This paper proposes a highly accurate square grid based RFID positioning and tracking technique mainly for use in indoor. It involves design of square grid RFID reader antenna network and position calculation using diffusion algorithm. Square grid reader antenna network presents the solution of placement pattern of RFID reader antennas, hence optimal number of required RFID reader antennas and coverage can be achieved. Diffusion algorithm is a means of exchanging information over short range in estimating RFID tag position by using distance information between reader and tag. The proposed square grid tracking and positioning method is evaluated and compared with the existing positioning method such as Wi-Fi based positioning method and BlueBoT system. The obtained results indicate that the proposed method can achieve average positioning error below 1 m and in some cases error as low as 0.3 m can be reached.