Indoor robot navigation through intelligent processing of RFID signal measurements

The purpose of this manuscript is to present a novel non-vision-based indoor mobile robot navigation technique with an intelligent processing of received signal strength (RSS) measurements using a customized Radio Frequency IDentification system. The navigation problem of a mobile robot has been traditionally solved by several approaches suggested in the literature. Among the most common shortcomings of those approaches are the use of excessive number of sensors or multiple reference RF stations for the robot to estimate its location in an indoor environment. Moreover, a spatial layout or cost problems limit the applicability of those approaches in many real-world robotic systems. The current work is devoted to developing a mobile robot navigation system where RSS measurements are provided to the robot by a customized RFID reader mounted on it. For it to navigate, the robot simply applies necessary actions to its actuators based on the intelligent processing of those RSS measurements. The customized RFID reader architecture is simulated using the comprehensive electromagnetic commercial software, FEKO. The proposed navigation system is evaluated through a number of computer simulations. It is shown through these simulations that a mobile robot has the ability to successfully navigate along a pre-defined path in an indoor environment regardless of the path's complexity.