The reader system of the UHF RFID is based on AS3992. And its read-distance is about 20m. The hardware's design and software's programming are introduced in detail. The design of the hardware is composed of the MCU (TMS320C5509A) circuit, the RF front-end circuit, the power divider and the phase shifter circuit. The programming of the software contains the ISO/IEC18000-6C protocol, the smart switched-beam algorithm, the power control algorithm, and the communication between the microcontroller and the PC through UART. The experimental results show that the reader has many features such as fast recognition speed, long read-distance, large coverage, anti-interference. The system can operate stably, so it has good application prospect.