The MONITOR Robot with UHF-RFID Rotating Antennas enhancing Indoor Tag Localization

The MONITOR Project is born to respond to the increasing demand for highly accurate and quick inventorying operations. For this purpose, an automatic Ultra-High-Frequency (UHF) Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) system consisting of a mobile robot is conceived. Particularly, the robot is equipped with rotating arms allowing an antenna motion able to improve tag localization when Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) methods are applied. In this paper, the proof-of-concept of the mobile robot with rotating arms is firstly presented. Localization performance is shown in a realistic warehouse/store environment where RFID tags are attached to clothes arranged on dress racks. Also stray tags are considered in the indoor scenario, to make the environment more challenging. The experimental analysis demonstrates the system capability in improving localization performance thanks to rotating antennas.