RANGING AND POSITIONING OF
UHF RFID TAGS
H. Arthaber, K. Witrisal
RFID Real-Time Localization for Flexible Production Environments (REFlex)
Ass.Prof. Dr. Holger Arthaber
[email protected] Assoc.Prof. Dr. Klaus Witrisal
Vienna University of Technology
[email protected]Institute of Electrodynamics, Microwave and Circuit Engineering Graz University of Technology
Microwave Engineering Group Signal Processing and Speech Communication Lab
Gusshausstrasse 25/354 Inffeldgasse 16c
1040 Vienna, Austria 8010 Graz, Austria
Contents
• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary
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Contents
• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary
3
Applications for Accurate Indoor Positioning Systems
Manufacturing Retail Manufacturing Logistics
Process monitoring Real-time inventory Positioning / Navigation
Process control Recommender system Safety
Theft control Flexible processes
Pick-and-place Assisted Living Emergency response systems
Error detection Fall detection Safety
Flexible processes Medication management Coordination
Behavior monitoring Monitoring
Objectives: Requirements: Technologies:
Positioning and navigation; Accuracy (5 – 20 cm); Reliability RFID; active transponders (IoT;
activity recognition; control (90 – 100%) UWB); 5G wireless systems
Images: Ubisense, SSI Schaefer, brighamyen.com, Witrisal, Jungheinrich, slashgear.com 4
Ranging/Positioning Applications
• Potential future applications for RFID
– Positioning of massive tag populations
– Activity recognition (humans interacting with goods)
• Sales floor
– Recommender systems for “brick and mortar” stores
• Warehouses
– Pick-and-place stations
• Requirements:
– large read volumes (entire rooms); decimeter-range accuracies
Images: SSI Schaefer, brighamyen.com
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Ranging/Positioning Applications
• Traditional RFID applications domains – ranging allows for:
• RFID Gates
– distance bounding, range gating reduce false detects
– movement direction detection
• Conveyor belts
– ordering on conveyor belt
– distance bounding for parallel belts
• Requirements:
– confined read volumes; 0.5 – 1 m accuracy; (typically) ~100 % reliability
Images: intermec
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Contents
• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary
7
The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
Monostatic configuration: Bistatic configuration:
red ……. unmodulated signal from reader line of sight path
green … signal with tag-modulation on it other paths, e.g. via reflectors
Problems:
• „Multipath“: several ways/paths from antenna to tag
• „Reflectors“: introduce multipath and/or „blind“ the RFID reader
• „Dead spots“: no communication zones due to interference
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The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
How does the signal look like at the RX-antenna?
• Radio waves are described by
– Frequency (e.g. 868 MHz)
– Magnitude
– Phase
• RX antenna receives unmodulated TX signal and tag‘s modulated response
+ =
large signal very small signal, shown enlarged combined signal
(dominated by TX-RX-coupling) (dominated by line-of-sight path) (tag response almost invisible)
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Contents
• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary
10
Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning – Overview
2D Positioning Methods
1) Angle based (Triangulation)
– requires at least 2 RFID readers at
exactly known positions and orientations
2) Distance based (Trilateration)
– requires at least 2(3) RFID readers at
exactly known positions
3) Combination of Angle + Distance
– works with a single reader
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Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning – Received Signal Strength (RSSI)
Received Signal Strength (RSSI)
• Uses the received signal power
• Gives a distance estimate
Problems:
• Multipath results in inaccuracy
• Antenna pattern influence
• Tag‘s reflection is not constant
• Many RFID reader chipsets aren‘t capable
of vector measurements (they either use real or imaginary part)
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Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning – Angle of Arrival (AoA)
Angle of Arrival (AoA)
• Uses at least two antennas
• phase difference of tag’s signal gives an angle estimate
Problems:
• Multiple antennas needed
• Multipath will result in wrong power readings
• Many RFID readers aren‘t capable of vector
measurements ?
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Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning – Time of Flight (ToF)
Time of Flight (ToF)
• An experiment:
– Transmission of an ultra-short pulse in an indoor environment
– Signal reflections lead to multipath propagation
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Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning – Time of Flight (ToF)
• Influence of bandwidth:
– Time/range resolution changes vastly
• Impact of multipath propagation onto ToF ranging:
– Ultra-wideband (> 500 MHz): line-of-sight signal is clearly seen
– 10 – 100 MHz: signal distortions and fading
– Narrowband (<= 1 MHz): flat fading (only)
• Conclusion: (very) large bandwidth is needed
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Contents
• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary
16
Positioning with Multiple Antennas
Multi-antenna systems improve the ranging and positioning performance
Three reader configurations Error ellipses: 95% of measurements are inside
with 2 reader positions are
positioning error at 50 MHz ranging bandwidth
compared. Each reader has:
1) – combined TX/RX antenna
2 range measurements
2) – separated TX/RX antennas
2 range + 2 bistatic meas.
3) – 2 pairs of separated TX/RX ant.
2 x 4 independent range plus
8 independent bistatic meas. 1 41range
range 41range
range
1 bi
28 bistatic
bistatic
121TX;
TRX
TX,12RX
RX 1TX;
TRX
21TX, 21RX
RX
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Positioning with Multiple Antennas
Comparison of numeric results over entire test area:
95% error 99% error
2 x monostatic 34 cm 38 cm
4 x bistatic 26 cm 30 cm
16 x bistatic 13 cm 15 cm
Always statistical errors – There is no 100% guarantee!
Multiple antennas improve performance dramatically, but
Require complex infrastructure (antennas mounted at exact positions)
Positioning performance with 50 MHz bandwidth sufficient for most applications
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Contents
• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary
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A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
What’s new?
• Direct time-of-flight measurement with 50 MHz bandwidth
• Works with standard EPC Gen2 tags
• Independent on tag chip manufacturer
• Performs ranging with a single antenna
• Measures the “echo” from the tag’s antenna and suppresses other echos
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A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
How does the ranging signal look like?
• Spectrum of RFID and ranging signal: RFID communication
unattenuated ranging signal
reduced power ranging signal
• Without any changes, the signal violates EPC standard and radio standards
an extremely low power ranging signal must be used
this reduces signal to noise ratio expect noisy distance measurements
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A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
Nice theory… But can this work?
Ranging Enabled RFID Reader Prototype:
– EPC compliant 868/915 MHz reader
– Real-time positioning of standard UHF EPC tags
– FPGA implementation
– Research platform:
• RF-Frontend not yet optimized
• Positioning algorithms
SPS IPC Drives 2015, Nuremburg
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A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
Measurement results
• NXP UCODE 7 tags
• 5 tags in different distances
95
(0.5) ± 1.2 cm
1.14 ± 4.8 cm
2.06 ± 4.2 cm
2.84 ± 6.2 cm
4.22 ± 8.8 cm
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Contents
• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary
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Summary
• Basic ranging principles explained
– Distance based
– Angle based
• Ranging/positioning accuracy is limited by multipath transmission
– Always statistical errors, no 100% guarantee
– More bandwidth better accuracy
– More antennas more accuracy
• New ToF-based ranging method
– Promising results for standard EPC Gen2 tags
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Thank You For Your Attention!
parts of the shown results were done in the funded research project:
RFID Real-Time Localization for Flexible Production Environments (REFlex)
