Design of a Hybrid RFID/GPS-Based Terminal System in Vehicular Communications

In this contribution, a novel vehicle terminal system is proposed to realize continuous monitoring and precise localization of cargos loaded on board for digital logistics. The integrated hardware and software design of the terminal system is presented, which combines RFID with GPS technologies based on embedded systems. We use the ultra-low power 16-bit RISC mixed-signal microcontroller as the central control unit considering both small size and high efficiency. The intelligent vehicle terminal system can provide mainly the automatic identification of cargos loaded, the real-time vehicle localization, the data and voice communication, and remote centralized monitoring as well. Experimental results indicate that the integration of RFID and GPS can enhance the reliability of the system, which further improve the accuracy and efficiency of digital logistics management.