Power-Efficient Extensible Architecture for RFID-Assisted Multiple Target Tracking

Here we propose an extensible multiple target tracking architecture which utilizes RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology and cooperates with currently existing tracking sensors. Our proposed approach demands every individual sensor to predefine a confidence factor in advance, which allows us to track multiple targets simultaneously in a more accurate and power-efficient way. We have previously shown that a load sensory floor can non-intrusively keep track of residents´ locations based on both their regular movement patterns and distinguishable features such as their weights; however, it generally becomes infeasible to simultaneously differentiate two or more residents with irregular movement patterns or similar weight measurements. With the assistance of active RFID tags, our proposed system can cope with these limitations and improve upon the tracking results of previous systems by fusing RFID-based correction signals with those from currently available sensors. Each sensor has to reckon its corresponding confidence factor which is later used in conjunction with the RFID signals to dynamically discriminate erroneous outputs from correct ones, meanwhile mitigating the power consumption issues inherent in RFID systems. Our experimental results, which comprise three scenarios having distinct irregular movement patterns, demonstrate the effectiveness of the architecture.