UHF RFID feasibility research: The endless possibilities and challenges of item‐level tagging in a retail store

Abstract

This article investigates the effects of the environment on ultrahigh frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in both the near‐field and far‐field. Item‐level tagging has always been challenging due to the negative impact of metals on RFID. Full‐scale RFID item‐level tagging has always been difficult to integrate in retail (department) stores. This UHF RFID feasibility research examines the technical differences between near‐field and far‐field coupling by testing theoretical hypotheses through empirical experiments. These experiments are based on a specific case‐study, where a distributor wants to tag multimedia objects. Based on the results obtained, we found that metal had less effect on the RFID tags in the near‐field than in the far‐field. In both cases the RFID tag was not readable, when placed directly onto metal. When the multimedia object itself was tagged, the reading range decreased to around half the free‐space reading range in near‐field and far‐field. We can conclude that the RFID implementation in the retail store is feasible, but depends to a large extent on the product and its environment. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:718–727, 2014