A Modular Cost-Effective Mobile Robot Navigation System Using RFID Technology

Abstract

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; layout-grid-mode: char;" align="left"><span class="text"><span style="font-family: ";Arial";,";sans-serif";; font-size: 9pt;">Skilled navigation in mobile robotics usually requires solving two problems pertaining to the knowledge of the position of the robot, and to a motion control strategy. When no prior knowledge of the environment is available, the problem becomes even more challenging, since the robot has to build a map of its surroundings as it moves. These three tasks ought to be solved in conjunction due to their interdependency. The present manuscript proposes a novel mobile robot navigation technique using a customized RFID reader with two receiving antennas mounted on the robot and a number of standard RFID tags attached in the robot’s environment to define its path. In here, we show that using the RF signal from the RFID tags as an analog feedback signals can be a promising strategy to navigate a mobile robot within an unknown or uncertain indoor environment. This method is computationally simpler and more cost-effective than many of its counterparts in the state of the art. It is also modular and easy to implement since it is independent of the robot’s architecture and its workspace. A set of numerical computer simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.</span></span><span style="font-family: ";Arial";,";sans-serif";; font-size: 9pt;"></span></p&gt

Path following with passive UHF RFID received signal strength in unknown environments

“…Recent research also explores the application of RFID for navigation and path following purposes. Gueaieb et al [7] utilized the phase difference of RFID signals for the navigation task. The mobile agent was able to follow virtual paths that link the tags' orthogonal projections to the ground.…”

Mobile robot trajectory tracking using noisy RSS measurements: An RFID approach

“…The RFID emulation was necessary since till the time this manuscript was written, none of the commercially available RFID readers had the capability of providing the RSS value of the RF signal. A theoretical design of a modified RFID architecture that supports this feature is presented in [37,38].…”

Highly capacity RFID generated by a soliton pulse within a panda ring resonator

“…Moreover, RFID applications of interest include book identification in a library system, animal identification in livestock management, control for transportation systems, and it is a common term used for technology that uses radio waves to identify objects or people. Many research works have been concentrated about on the surface acoustic wave RFID tags [3], uplink and downlink coverage improvements of signals using a distributed antenna network [4], modular cost‐effective mobile robot navigation system using RFID technology [5], demonstration of improved passive UHF RFID coverage using optically fed distributed multi antenna system [6], rectangular microstrip path antenna design at THz frequency for short distance wireless communication systems [7], optical frequency doubling for multi channel radio over fiber (RoF) system based on integrated phase modulator and silicon coupled microring notch filter[8], high frequency using polymer microring resonators [9]. Recently, Yupapin et al have shown the promising idea that the nonlinear effects of light in a microring resonators [10, 11], which can be used to enhance the optical spectrum output.…”