Flying sensors: Merging Nano-UAV with radiofrequency identification

The concurrent evolutions of micro/nano Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and sensor-oriented Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, prompts the idea of winged-tags for an ubiquitous and dynamic monitoring of harsh environments and of large indoors spaces. It is here described and experimentally characterized the concept of Tag-Drone comprising a low-cost nano-quadcopter and a miniaturized RFID tag having temperature sensing capability. The weight of the RFID sensor is compatible with the modest payload of the quadcopter and it can be interrogated up to three meters. A simple experimental procedure, involving a reproducible guided flight of the Tag-Drone, is hence described to estimate the visibility time windows with respect to a base station for on-the-flight data exchange in case of different operational modes.