RFID-enabled Target Tracking and Following with a Mobile Robot Using Direction Finding Antennas

A stand-alone direction finding RFID reader is developed for mobile robot applications employing a dual-directional antenna. By adding search and localization capabilities to the current state of RFID technology, robots will be able to acquire and dock to a static target in a real environment without requiring a map or landmarks. Furthermore, we demonstrate RFID-enabled tracking and following of a target moving unpredictably with a mobile robot. The RFID reader keeps the robot aware of the direction of arrival (DOA) of the signal of interest toward which the dual-directional antenna faces the target transponder. The simulation results show that the proposed RFID system can track in real time the movement of the target transponder. To verify the effectiveness of the system in a real environment, we perform a variety of experiments in a hallway including target tracking and following with a commercial mobile robot.