Event-based location detection

Location detection is an important problem area, which can be found in many business domains. Sample application scenarios are searching books in libraries, shirts in fashion stores or DVDs in department stores. This paper introduces an innovative approach for the localisation of items based on Complex Event Processing (CEP) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). It is shown how CEP can be used to localise items equipped with RFID transponders in a real-world scenario. One key feature of the proposed approach is that it allows the localisation of objects that has not been tracked and traced before. In particular, mobile RFID handheld readers are used for scanning items and providing location information for the CEP system while moving around. First, the CEP system determines the reader´s geographical position by trilateration of the RFID signal strengths. Then the most probable direction to the searched item is calculated in real-time.