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Mobile RFID Tag Reading with Non-Overlapping Tandem Readers on a Conveyor Belt
Abstract
Mobile RFID tag reading on conveyor belt represents a practical scenario used widely in the supply chain industry. Typically, in RFID tag reading MAC protocols, the time the protocol takes to complete the reading of all the tags is directly proportional to the number of tags. As a natural scalability problem, when the number of mobile tags is large, the protocol that is initiated and coordinated by a reader will not be able to read all the tags, as the tags move away from the reader’s range. In this paper, we tackle this problem, by showing how a large number of tags moving on a conveyor belt can be read using a tandem of communicating readers placed along the axis of the conveyor belt. The tags that are unread by a reader could be read by the reader next in the sequence. Rather than restarting the protocol at the next reader in the sequence to read the unread tags, it can use the information from the previous reader (we call it information sharing) to improve protocol performance and hence reduce the reading time. Thanks to the advanced RFID technologies offering enhanced tag persistent times. The tags can now preserve their states in ‘power-off’ conditions for significantly longer distances in the conveyor-belt.
We show that this information sharing significantly enhances the tag reading performance (in terms of number of tag reads) as compared with the traditional tag reading protocols. In our experiments, we consider the tandem reader arrangement with information sharing for ALOHA, Tree, and two different combinations of ALOHA and Tree (a.k.a. hybrid) protocols. Our performance evaluation study corroborated with extensive simulation results show that the aforementioned protocols augmented with our novel information sharing frameworks outperform their respective primitive ‘as-is’ version counterparts.
... Bouhouche et al. [26] developed dedicated middleware to collect RFID data and integrate it into an information system. Satyavolu et al. [27] demonstrated a method to solve the scalability problem in large numbers of RFIDs moving on a conveyor belt by using tandem readers placed along the axis of the conveyor belt to read them. ...
In this study, we develop a system to provide information on the sterilization of baggage carts and arriving passenger baggage to airport (Hereafter referred as arrival baggage) by using ultraviolet (UV) sterilization and information communication technology as border quarantine measures at airports. This system sterilizes arrival baggage and baggage carts by UV irradiation, and allows passengers to easily view the sterilization information recognized by radio frequency indentation technology. This is to provide safety and security not only to passengers, but also to staff, who may come into direct contact with the arrival baggage, of airport, airline, customs, and so on. In addition, the passengers can be provided with baggage tracking information, such as the current location and estimated delivering time of the baggage. This makes it possible to keep social distancing at baggage claims as an infection prevention. Furthermore, we verify the feasibility of the developed system and identify the issues to be addressed for its practical application through a demonstration of proof of concept at Central Japan International Airport.
... When the recognition areas of the readers are close to each other, interference between them occurs, whereas they need to work separately. In [12], a reader can determine whether the tag is unread by the previous reader. But, if the tag is a passive one and there is any intermediate power cut, the reader will be unable to determine whether the tag is recognized or not. ...
At present, some existing tag anti-collision algorithms are used mostly in scenarios of fixed number of tags and they perform poorly in tag moving scenarios. Therefore, this paper proposes a double reader tag movement RFID anti-collision method based on suffix, and through the cloud platform based on cloud computing, the supply chain data sharing is realized. Tag moving scenarios usually use a single reader. The proposed employs double reader to expand the recognition range and also to prolong the recognition time, but there is the problem of repeated recognition. This article proposes a suffix-based bit-slot ALOHA (SBSA) algorithm, where this problem is solved and the time-slot is reduced. In view of the problem that a large number of tags entering into the recognition area of readers lead to the reduction of the recognition efficiency. This article proposes a suffix-based tag group bit-slot ALOHA (STGBSA) algorithm, tag grouping and tag estimation methods are proposed. Complexity analysis is deployed in this article, from the perspective of the tag loss ratio and identification efficiency, the performances of various anti-collision algorithms are evaluated and compared with those of the existing methods. The simulation results show that the method proposed in this paper is better than the existing methods.
... The speed by which the RFID wand (inventory taker) passes the tags (books) is of influence on identification performance. In supply chain situations speed testing is common, mainly in conveyer belt experiments / testing (Buffi et al., 2014;Fabbi et al., 2002;Satyavolu et al., 2016;Wang and Wang, 2010;Zhao et al., 2017). However, no experimental studies area known where the speed of passing is investigated in the context of a library. ...
Purpose
Low read rates are a general problem in library inventories. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that contribute to the success of library inventory by means of a radio-frequency identification (RFID) inventory taker. The factors investigated were tag position, tag orientation, book thickness, tag density (related to thickness of a sequence of books) and position on the shelf.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 210 books were placed in eight random permutations on three fixed book shelves. For each configuration, the RFID tags were read forty times. The resulting data were analysed by means of a generalized linear model, relating the combined contribution of tag position, tag orientation, book thickness and position on the bookshelf to the read rate.
Findings
The tags positioned directly next to the spine were always read, but those near the opening of the book (far from the spine and inventory reader) were not always read. Considering only books with tags near the opening, tag orientation and position on the shelf appeared not to be related to the read rate, while book thickness, thickness over three books and spine tag density appeared to have a small positive contribution to the read rate.
Practical implications
Low read rates during a library inventory can be prevented by placing the tags near the book spine – the other book specific factors (listed in the previous paragraph) are of little influence. When not scanned during a first sweep, repeated scanning can increase the read rate with 0.15.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the first to analyse the influence of tag location and book specific factors on the read rate of RFID tags in library books. The experimental approach sets an example for future work.
... When location information can be associated with monitored contextual information, for example, machine power usage and vibration, it can be used to provide smart monitoring information, such as which components have been machined by a worn or damaged tool [62]. RFID is the most commonly utilized product tracking and automation technology, especially useful in the supply chain industry [63], as well as in more specialized industries of asset tracking like identification of individual farm animals [65]. The generated data can be diverse over all asset tracking applications, but usually only one tracking method is used for each individual application, leading to a uniform data variety. ...
Information and communication technologies are permeating all aspects of industrial and manufacturing systems, expediting the generation of large volumes of industrial data. This article surveys the recent literature on data management as it applies to networked industrial environments and identifies several open research challenges for the future. As a first step, we extract important data properties (volume, variety, traffic, criticality) and identify the corresponding data enabling technologies of diverse fundamental industrial use cases, based on practical applications. Secondly, we provide a detailed outline of recent industrial architectural designs with respect to their data management philosophy (data presence, data coordination, data computation) and the extent of their distributiveness. Then, we conduct a holistic survey of the recent literature from which we derive a taxonomy of the latest advances on industrial data enabling technologies and data centric services, spanning all the way from the field level deep in the physical deployments, up to the cloud and applications level. Finally, motivated by the rich conclusions of this critical analysis, we identify interesting open challenges for future research. The concepts presented in this article thematically cover the largest part of the industrial automation pyramid layers. Our approach is multidisciplinary, as the selected publications were drawn from two fields; the communications, networking and computation field as well as the industrial, manufacturing and automation field. The article can help the readers to deeply understand how data management is currently applied in networked industrial environments, and select interesting open research opportunities to pursue.
... When location information can be associated with monitored contextual information, e.g. machine power usage and vibration, it can be used to provide smart monitoring information, such as which components have been machined by a worn or damaged tool [58]. RFID is the most commonly utilized product tracking and automation technology, especially useful in the supply chain industry [59], as well as in more specialized industries of asset tracking like identification of individual farm animals [61]. The generated data can be diverse over all asset tracking applications, but usually only one tracking method is used for each individual application, leading to a uniform data variety. ...
Information and communication technologies are permeating all aspects of industrial and manufacturing systems, expediting the generation of large volumes of industrial data. This article surveys the recent literature on data management as it applies to networked industrial environments and identifies several open research challenges for the future. As a first step, we extract important data properties (volume, variety, traffic, criticality) and identify the corresponding data enabling technologies of diverse fundamental industrial use cases, based on practical applications. Secondly, we provide a detailed outline of recent industrial architectural designs with respect to their data management philosophy (data presence, data coordination, data computation) and the extent of their distributiveness. Then, we conduct a holistic survey of the recent literature from which we derive a taxonomy of the latest advances on industrial data enabling technologies and data centric services, spanning all the way from the field level deep in the physical deployments, up to the cloud and applications level. Finally, motivated by the rich conclusions of this critical analysis, we identify interesting open challenges for future research. The concepts presented in this article are based on an exhaustive research of recent scientific publications and thematically cover the largest part of the industrial automation pyramid layers. Our approach is multidisciplinary, as the selected publications were drawn from two fields; the communications, networking and computation field as well as the industrial, manufacturing and automation field. The article can help the readers to deeply understand how data management is currently applied in networked industrial environments, and select interesting open research opportunities to pursue.
... Furthermore we need to consider the placement of the RFID reader along the conveyor belt at certain constant velocity of the belt, this wil determine the tag reading performance [14]. Several baggage handling system use additional component to control or to do some specific process. ...
Tag identification is an important tool in RFID systems with applications for monitoring and tracking. A RFID reader recognizes tags through communication over a shared wireless channel. When multiple tags transmit their IDs simultaneously, the tag-to-reader signals collide and this collision disturbs a reader's identification process. Therefore, tag collision arbitration for passive tags is a significant issue for fast identification. This paper presents two adaptive tag anticollision protocols: an adaptive query splitting protocol (AQS), which is an improvement on the query tree protocol, and an adaptive binary splitting protocol (ABS), which is based on the binary tree protocol and is a de facto standard for RFID anticollision protocols. To reduce collisions and identify tags efficiently, adaptive tag anticollision protocols use information obtained from the last process of tag identification. Our performance evaluation shows that AQS and ABS outperform other tree-based tag anticollision protocols
A radio frequency identification (RFID) reader recognizes objects through wireless communications with RFID tags. Tag collision arbitration for passive tags is a significant issue for fast tag identification due to communication over a shared wireless channel. This paper presents an adaptive memoryless protocol, which is an improvement on the query tree protocol. Memoryless means that tags need not have additional memory except ID for identification. To reduce collisions and identify tags promptly, we use information obtained from the last process of tag identification at a reader. Our performance evaluation shows that the adaptive memoryless protocol causes fewer collisions and takes shorter delay for recognizing all tags while preserving lower communication overhead than other tree based tag anticollision protocols
Tag identification is an important tool in RFID systems with applications for monitoring and tracking. A RFID reader recognizes tags through communication over a shared wireless channel. When multiple tags transmit their IDs simultaneously, the tag-to-reader signals collide and this collision disturbs a reader's identification process. Therefore, tag collision arbitration for passive tags is a significant issue for fast identification. This paper presents two adaptive tag anticollision protocols: an Adaptive Query Splitting protocol (AQS), which is an improvement on the query tree protocol, and an Adaptive Binary Splitting protocol (ABS), which is based on the binary tree protocol and is a de facto standard for RFID anticollision protocols. To reduce collisions and identify tags efficiently, adaptive tag anticollision protocols use information obtained from the last process of tag identification. Our performance evaluation shows that AQS and ABS outperform other tree-based tag anticollision protocols.
Many algorithms have been proposed for avoiding tag collisions in radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems. However, most of these algorithms consider only a single reader in the current frame. Real-world Radio Frequency Identification systems typically contain multiple readers, and the interrogation zones of neighboring readers often overlap. This situation damages the performance of algorithms considering staying tags and each reader will ignore the overlapping staying tags due to counter states reset by other readers in the next frame. As a result, the efficiency of the tag identification process in the intersection region is seriously degraded. Accordingly, this paper analyzes the performance of three existing binary tree-based anticollision algorithms in detecting overlapping staying tags and then proposes a new hybrid blocking algorithm (HBA) to alleviate the overlapping staying tag problem. The simulation results show that the proposed HBA scheme provides a better identification performance than existing schemes, particularly, in dense RFID systems.
A new phase-based technique for localization and tracking of items moving along a conveyor belt and equipped with ultrahigh frequency-radio frequency identification (UHF-RFID) tags is described and validated here. The technique is based on a synthetic-array approach that takes advantage of the fact that the tagged items move along a conveyor belt whose speed and path are known a priori. In this framework, a joint use is done of synthetic-array radar principles, knowledge-based processing, and efficient exploitation of the reader-tag communication signal. The technique can be easily implemented in any conventional reader based on an in-phase and quadrature receiver and it does not require any modification of the reader antenna configurations usually adopted in UHF-RFID portals. Numerical results are used to investigate the performance analysis of such methods, and also to furnish system design guidelines. Finally, the localization capability is also demonstrated through a measurement campaign in a real conveyor belt scenario, showing that a centimeter-order accuracy in the tag position estimation can be achieved even in a rich multipath environment.
Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) system is a highly sought-after technology prominently used in the automation, logistics, and supply-chain industries. EPC Gen-2 is the current standard RFID air-interface protocol in the industry. Underlying this standard is the Q-adaptive MAC protocol, which is used to identify and read the tags, by stochastically arranging them over time. The Q-adaptive protocol's performance is sensitive to the number of tags placed under the vicinity of the reader. With the current era of ‘item-level tagging’ witnessing an increased number of tags in a given area; mathematically understanding the performance of the protocol in these large-scale RFID systems becomes essential. Recent works have established the importance of the Q-adaptive protocol, by analyzing its performance with the help of Markov-chain models. However, these analyses suffer from the common ‘state-space explosion’ problem, as the state-space increases quadratically with an increasing number of participating tags. Hence it is essential to come up with a scalable analysis, whose computation model is insensitive to the number of tags. To this end, in this paper, we propose a scalable bound-based solution to study the delay performance of Q-adaptive protocol. We derive the delay bound by exploiting the fact that, in the large number of tags regime, the Q-adaptive protocol rapidly reaches to theoretical maximum performance and stays reasonably close in that optimal region for most of the time. Our extensive simulation results validate our bound-based solution with reasonable accuracy.
The estimation of the order-of-arrival for items on a conveyor belt is a fundamental operation for automatic supply chain management. Classical solutions are based on optical systems, which are accurate but do not guarantee the transmission of a high amount of data through the barcode, or on ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID), which does not guarantee high-accuracy sorting. Among wireless technologies, ultra-wide band (UWB) provides high-accuracy localization. In this paper, we introduce a joint UHF and UWB RFID system that allows identification and tracking of passive tags attached to objects for high-accuracy order-of-arrival estimation of goods on conveyor belts. A tracking technique based on particle filtering is used for order-of-arrival estimation. Results for a case of study show accuracy of the proposed system for various settings.
In many logistics applications of RFID technology, luggage attached with tags are placed on moving conveyor belts for processing. It is important to figure out the order of goods on the belts so that further actions like sorting can be accurately taken on proper goods. Due to arbitrary goods placement or the irregularity of wireless signal propagation, neither of the order of tag identification nor the received signal strength provides sufficient evidence on their relative positions on the belts. In this study, we observe, from experiments, a critical region of reading rate when a tag gets close enough to a reader. This phenomenon, as well as other signal attributes, yields the stable indication of tag order. We establish a probabilistic model for recognizing the transient critical region and propose the OTrack protocol to continuously monitor the order of tags. To validate the protocol, we evaluate the accuracy and effectiveness through a one-month experiment conducted through a working conveyor at Beijing Capital International Airport.
In this paper, we show the first comprehensive experimental study on mobile RFID reading performance based on a relatively large number of tags. By making a number of observations regarding the tag reading performance, we build a model to depict how various parameters affect the reading performance. Through our model, we have designed very efficient algorithms to maximize the time-efficiency and energy-efficiency by adjusting the reader's power and moving speed. Our experiments show that our algorithms can reduce the total scanning time by 50\% and the total energy consumption by 83\% compared to the prior solutions.
Dense passive radio frequency identification (RFID) systems are particularly susceptible to reader collision problems, categorized by reader-to-tag and reader-to-reader collisions. Both may degrade the system performance decreasing the number of identified tags per time unit. Although many proposals have been suggested to avoid or handle these collisions, most of them are not compatible with current standards and regulations, require extra hardware and do not make an efficient use of the network resources. This paper proposes the Geometric Distribution Reader Anti-collision (GDRA), a new centralized scheduler that exploits the Sift geometric probability distribution function to minimize reader collision problems. GDRA provides higher throughput than the state-of-the-art proposals for dense reader environments and, unlike the majority of previous works, GDRA is compliant with the EPCglobal standard and ETSI EN 302 208 regulation, and can be implemented in real RFID systems without extra hardware.
In dense radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, reader-to-reader interference may appear among readers operating nearby. When the anticollision algorithm is Frame Slotted Aloha (FSA), a usual solution is to multiplex the frames of interfering readers by means of a central controller. The scenario studied considers RFID tags attached to objects carried by conveyor belts or vehicles so that each tag crosses, in constant motion, one reader's interrogation region. The problem addressed consists of determining the length of the multiplexed FSA frames such that each object is successfully identified, with high probability, before exiting its interrogation region. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model, based on dynamic system theory, allowing us to obtain the configurations attaining the desired reliability objective, to show that some configurations present multiple equilibrium points and should be avoided, and to define the operating boundaries of the system. The model can also incorporate fading and capture effects.
The growing importance of operations such as identification, location sensing, and object tracking has led to increasing interests in contactless Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems. Enjoying the low cost of RFID tags, modern RFID systems tend to be deployed for large-scale mobile objects. Both the theoretical and experimental results suggest that when tags are in large numbers, most existing collision arbitration protocols do not satisfy the scalability and time-efficiency requirements of many applications. To address this problem, we propose Adaptively Splitting-based Arbitration Protocol (ASAP), a scheme that provides efficient RFID identification for both small and large deployment of RFID tags, in terms of time and energy cost. Theoretical analysis and simulation evaluation show that the performance of ASAP is better than most existing collision-arbitration solutions and the time efficiency is close to the theoretically optimal values.
This paper presents an efficient collision resolution protocol and its variations for the tag identification problem, where an electromagnetic reader attempts to obtain within is read range the unique ID number of each tag. The novelty of our main protocol is that each tag is memoryless, i.e., the current response of each tag only depends on the current query of the reader but not on the past history of the reader's queries. Moreover, the only computation required for each tag is to match its ID against the binary string in the query. Theoretical resulst in both time and communication complexities are derived to demonstrate the efficiency of our protocols.
In order to solve the transponder collision problem in a RFID system, this paper proposes a hybrid algorithm which combines strengths of existing high-performance algorithms while avoiding their major drawbacks. Experiments show this hybrid algorithm uses fewer time slots and less total communication time compared to adaptive slot-count algorithm based on ALOHA as well as enhanced anti-collision algorithm based on binary tree, both of which are superior and well accepted algorithms in literature. Meanwhile, high computational intensity of adaptive slot-count algorithm is significantly relieved, and memory consumption of enhanced anti-collision algorithm is reduced to a negligible level. Results from simulations under large number of transponders and long transponder IDs, which is the case in real RFID applications, suggest the advantage of this hybrid algorithm is prominent.
In this paper we consider how to efficiently identify tags on the moving conveyor. Considering conditions like the path loss and multi-path effect in realistic settings, we first propose a probabilistic model for RFID tag identification. Based on this model, we propose efficient solutions to identify moving RFID tags, according to the fixed-path mobility on the conveyor. A dynamic program based solution and an adaptive solution are proposed to select optimized frame sizes during the query cycles. Simulation results indicate that by leveraging the probabilistic model our solutions can achieve much better performance than using parameters for the ideal propagation situations.
Due to the limitless possibilities and low cost, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems are used in a variety of applications to uniquely identify physical objects. The operation of RFID systems often involves a situation in which numerous tags are present in the interrogation zone of a single reader at the same time. The tags can collide and cancel each other out, leading to retransmission of tag IDs that results in wastage of bandwidth and an increase in the total delay. Besides, readers physically located near one another may interfere with one another’s operation. Such reader collision must be minimized to ensure the current operation of the RFID system. The main focus of this paper is to survey the collision resolution protocols for multi-access communication and the algorithms that calculate how to minimize reader-to-reader interference. A comparative view of surveyed protocol was concluded for the collision problem in RFID systems.
As the size of an RFID tag becomes smaller and the price of the tag gets lower, RFID technology has been applied to a wide range of areas. Recently, RFID has been adopted in the business area such as supply chain management. Since companies can get movement information for products easily using the RFID technology, it is expected to revolutionize supply chain management. However, the amount of RFID data in supply chain management is huge. Therefore, it re- quires much time to extract valuable information from RFID data for supply chain management. In this paper, we define query templates for tracking queries and path oriented queries to analyze the supply chain. We then propose an eective path encoding scheme to encode the flow information for products. To retrieve the time in- formation for products eciently, we utilize a numbering scheme used in the XML area. Based on the path encod- ing scheme and the numbering scheme, we devise a storage scheme to process tracking queries and path oriented queries eciently. Finally, we propose a method which translates the queries to SQL queries. Experimental results show that our approach can process the queries eciently. On the av- erage, our approach is about 680 times better than a recent technique in terms of query performance.
RFID is taking the world by storm but lowering the price of the tag is a necessity in order to completely replace barcode systems with RFID systems. Researchers around the world have been working on chipless RFID systems. In this paper we present a novel chipless RFID system for barcode replacement. The system can be effectively used in conveyor belt applications. It uses spectral signatures to encoded data and hence provide a unique ID for every tagged object. The chipless tag is fully passive and planar.