Localisation of forgotten items using RFID technology

The frequency with which items are misplaced increases with age, leading to increased frustration and anxiety especially for those who develop cognitive impairments such as dementia. Providing ICT support to assist with relocating items can significantly contribute to sustain independent living. In this paper we present a method for locating RFID tagged items throughout a home environment. Specifically, items are located by comparing and analysing signal strength, received from tagged items, with that received from a number of fixed location reference tags. This paper presents experiments which have been performed within a typical living environment using homogeneous and practical placement of reference tags. This is performed to consider the feasibility of RFID positioning in such environments. Results obtained indicate that the approach provides acceptable location estimation in pervasive environments with sparsely placed reference tags, however, further investigation is required to accurately quantify its value.