Data Collection Using RFID and a Mobile Reader

The widespread acceptance of RFID tags in inventory control applications has allowed the development of increasingly complex and useful inventory management techniques. This paper approaches the problem of real-time inventory querying in a large warehouse. We use a combination of powered, wireless- capable active RFID tags and a mobile RFID reader to design a querying system that uses both a mesh network formed with the active RFID tags and the mobile reader to balance query latency and total network lifetime. We implemented and simulated our system on Crossbow MicaZ motes and a custom robot platform. Our results show that our hybrid algorithm balances query latency and network lifetime more effectively than mesh network- only and mobile reader-only algorithms. In particular, we see network power consumption reduction of up to 60% and a 15% reduction in total distance travelled by the mobile reader. We conclude that introducing a mobile reader to active tag networks allows the design of flexible network algorithms that can reduce the impact of battery life on the network.