Reinforcement Learning for RFID Localization

We present RL2, a robotic system for efficient and accurate localization of UHF RFID tags. In contrast to past robotic RFID localization systems, which have mostly focused on location accuracy, RL2 learns how to jointly optimize the accuracy and speed of localization. To do so, it introduces a reinforcement-learning-based (RL) trajectory optimization network that learns the next best trajectory for a robot-mounted reader antenna. Our algorithm encodes the aperture length and location confidence (using a synthetic-aperture-radar formulation) from multiple RFID tags into the state observations and uses them to learn the optimal trajectory. We built an end-to-end prototype of RL2 with an antenna moving on a ceiling-mounted 2D robotic track. We evaluated RL2 and demonstrated that with the median 3D localization accuracy of 0.55m, it locates multiple RFID tags 2.13x faster compared to a baseline strategy. Our results show the potential for RL-based RFID localization to enhance the efficiency of RFID inventory processes in areas spanning manufacturing, retail, and logistics.