A multi-purpose RFID reader supporting indoor navigation systems

In this paper we introduce an UHF-RFID reader system built to serve as a multi-purpose reader for UHF-RFID applications. The structure of the reader itself is highly flexible to be able to include several standards. The intended use of the reader, however, consists in the support of navigation systems for the indoor environment. Assuming that arbitrarily distributed RFID tags, containing their exact positions given in latitude, longitude and elevation, are read out by the reader, the system is able to achieve the tags positions. In that case, the reader is able to evaluate and forward the readout positions in order to notify a superior navigation system of the estimated position, obtained from the RFID tags. This will lead to a more robust navigation system being able to navigate even in a high-grade multipath environment. Anyway, this paper concentrates more on technical terms concerning the reader system, including signal and spectrum analysis.