Directional discrimination in radio frequency identification system for materials flow control in manufacturing and supply chain

Abstract

The development of radio frequency identification (RFID) systems in recent years has enabled the application of this technology in critical areas such as tracking items of interest, reinforcing greater data security, and providing product authentication. However, the major drawback of RFID technology is its inability to detect the direction of movements, i.e. whether the tags are coming towards the read point and from which side. Hence, the reading obtained for each occasion is basically an indication of the ‘presence’ of the item only. A method of discriminating the direction of the RFID tag movement from returned signals of the RFID system has been developed. This paper describes the series of field measurements, that were conducted to assess the characteristics of the data streams, for the development of directional discrimination system.

Keywords

radio frequency identification (RFID)materials flow control direction discrimination system configuration supply chain management

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