Application of RF Tags in Highway Reference Markers

In this paper, a high speed (up to 96 km/h) vehicle-mounted long range passive radio frequency identification (RFID) system is proposed and developed to locate highway reference markers by collecting and analyzing the global positioning system (GPS) and distance measurement instrument (DMI) data simultaneously. The system consists of two parts: hardware and software. The hardware includes an RFID reader, high-gain reader antenna and passive tag. The software includes a data display interface and a three-threads data collecting system that can get GPS, DMI and RFID data simultaneously. The read range of this system can reach up to 12 m and locating resolution can be less than 5 m. The life span of the whole system can be up to ten years. A new type of meander dipole tag is designed and each of the RFID tag´s cost is less than 2 dollars. The field test also confirmed that the system is reliable and robust in practical highway application.