Spatial Identification Methods and Systems for RFID Tags

Disertační práce je zaměřena na metody a systémy pro měření vzdálenosti a lokalizaci RFID tagů pracujících v pásmu UHF. Úvod je věnován popisu současného stavu vědeckého poznání v oblasti RFID prostorové identifikace a stručnému shrnutí problematiky modelování a návrhu prototypů těchto systémů. Po specifikaci cílů disertace pokračuje práce popisem teorie modelování degenerovaného kanálu pro RFID komunikaci. Detailně jsou rozebrány metody měření vzdálenosti a odhadu směru příchodu signálu založené na zpracování fázové informace. Pro účely lokalizace je navrženo několik scénářů rozmístění antén. Modely degenerovaného kanálu jsou simulovány v systému MATLAB. Významná část této práce je věnována konceptu softwarově definovaného rádia (SDR) a specifikům jeho adaptace na UHF RFID, která využití běžných SDR systémů značně omezují. Diskutována je zejména problematika průniku nosné vysílače do přijímací cesty a požadavky na signál lokálního oscilátoru používaný pro směšování. Prezentovány jsou tři vyvinuté prototypy: experimentální dotazovač EXIN-1, měřicí systém založený na platformě Ettus USRP a anténní přepínací matice pro emulaci SIMO systému. Závěrečná část je zaměřena na testování a zhodnocení popisovaných lokalizačních technik, založených na měření komplexní přenosové funkce RFID kanálu. Popisuje úzkopásmové/širokopásmové měření vzdálenosti a metody odhadu směru signálu. Oba navržené scénáře rozmístění antén jsou v závěru ověřeny lokalizačním měřením v reálných podmínkách.The doctoral thesis is focused on methods and systems for ranging and localization of RFID tags operating in the UHF band. It begins with a description of the state of the art in the field of RFID positioning with short extension to the area of modeling and prototyping of such systems. After a brief specification of dissertation objectives, the thesis overviews the theory of degenerate channel modeling for RFID communication. Details are given about phase-based ranging and direction of arrival finding methods. Several antenna placement scenarios are proposed for localization purposes. The degenerate channel models are simulated in MATLAB. A significant part of the thesis is devoted to software defined radio (SDR) concept and its adaptation for UHF RFID operation, as it has its specialties which make the usage of standard SDR test equipment very disputable. Transmit carrier leakage into receiver path and requirements on local oscillator signals for mixing are discussed. The development of three experimental prototypes is also presented there: experimental interrogator EXIN-1, measurement system based on Ettus USRP platform, and antenna switching matrix for an emulation of SIMO system. The final part is focused on testing and evaluation of described positioning techniques based on complex backscatter channel transfer function measurement. Both narrowband/wideband ranging and direction of arrival methods are validated. Finally, both proposed antenna placement scenarios are evaluated with real-world measurements.

Passive UHF RFID Tilt Sensor

In this paper we introduce a bio-axis passive wireless UHF RFID tilt sensor for applications such as to increase safety in warehouse environment and damage detection in consumer goods and where long term monitoring of the product is essential without the need to supply power to the sensors. Simulation and prototype testing indicate it is possible to detect and isolate tilting in 3 axes

An effective frame breaking policy for dynamic framed slotted aloha in RFID

The tag collision problem is considered as one of the critical issues in RFID system. To further improve the identification efficiency of an UHF RFID system, a frame breaking policy is proposed with dynamic framed slotted aloha algorithm. Specifically, the reader makes effective use of idle, successful, and collision statistics during the early observation phase to recursively determine the optimal frame size. Then the collided tags in each slot will be resolved by individual frames. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves a better identification performance compared with the existing Aloha-based algorithms

ISI Cancellation Using Blind Equalizer Based on DBC Model for MIMO-RFID Reader Reception

Under the dyadic backscatter channel (DBC) model, a conventional zero forcing (ZF) and minimum mean square error (MMSE) method for MIMO-RFID reader reception are not able to be rapidly cancelled inter-symbol interference (ISI) because of the error of postpreamble transmission. In order to achieve the ISI cancellation, the conventional method of ZF and MMSE are proposed to resolve a convergence rate without postpreamble by using a constant modulus algorithm (CMA). Depending on the cost function, the CMA is used which based on second order statistics to estimate the channel statement of channel transfer function. Furthermore, the multiple-tag detection is also considered under the assumption of the maximum likelihood estimation. The comparison of the conventional method and the proposed method is analyzed by using computer simulation and experimental data. We can see that the proposed method is better than the conventional method with a faster ISI cancelling and a lower bit error rate (BER) improving as up to 12 tags

RFID Localisation For Internet Of Things Smart Homes: A Survey

The Internet of Things (IoT) enables numerous business opportunities in fields as diverse as e-health, smart cities, smart homes, among many others. The IoT incorporates multiple long-range, short-range, and personal area wireless networks and technologies into the designs of IoT applications. Localisation in indoor positioning systems plays an important role in the IoT. Location Based IoT applications range from tracking objects and people in real-time, assets management, agriculture, assisted monitoring technologies for healthcare, and smart homes, to name a few. Radio Frequency based systems for indoor positioning such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a key enabler technology for the IoT due to its costeffective, high readability rates, automatic identification and, importantly, its energy efficiency characteristic. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art RFID technologies in IoT Smart Homes applications. It presents several comparable studies of RFID based projects in smart homes and discusses the applications, techniques, algorithms, and challenges of adopting RFID technologies in IoT smart home systems.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, 3 table

Concurrent Backscatter Streaming from Batteryless and Wireless Sensor Tags with Multiple Subcarrier Multiple Access

This paper proposes a novel multiple access method that enables concurrent sensor data streaming from multiple batteryless, wireless sensor tags. The access method is a pseudo-FDMA scheme based on the subcarrier backscatter communication principle, which is widely employed in passive RFID and radar systems. Concurrency is realized by assigning a dedicated subcarrier to each sensor tag and letting all sensor tags backscatter simultaneously. Because of the nature of the subcarrier, which is produced by constant rate switching of antenna impedance without any channel filter in the sensor tag, the tag-to-reader link always exhibits harmonics. Thus, it is important to reject harmonics when concurrent data streaming is required. This paper proposes a harmonics rejecting receiver to allow simultaneous multiple subcarrier usage. This paper particularly focuses on analog sensor data streaming which minimizes the functional requirements on the sensor tag and frequency bandwidth. The harmonics rejection receiver is realized by carefully handling group delay and phase delay of the subcarrier envelope and the carrier signal to accurately produce replica of the harmonics by introducing Hilbert and inverse Hilbert transformations. A numerical simulator with Simulink and a hardware implementation with USRP and LabVIEW have been developed. Simulations and experiments reveal that even if the CIR before harmonics rejection is 0dB, the proposed receiver recovers the original sensor data with over 0.98 cross-correlation