Outdoor localization technique using active RFID technology aimed for security and disaster management applications

With the implementation of the principle of the Internet of Things raises demands for new services as well as technical requirements that enable their implementation. One of the fields is the localization of wounded in mass disasters. Currently, the identification is performed by paper / plastic triage tags, which are used to label wounded victim at first contact with rescue unit based on the state of the causality. Automatic identification using active RFID technology is in such a case a solution which permits remote technically sophisticated surveillance of the situation. It is advantageous to use active RFID tags as a low-power transmitter, which is an immense advantage comparison with GPS technology. Lifetime of such tag can be several months. Managed active RFID tags can localize wounded objects within the range of a few hundred meters in free space and indicate the degree of severity of the injury of individual causalities. RFID readers, i.e. locators placed in that area, evaluate the direction of arrival of each tag and transmit obtained information to the computer system, which calculates the position of each RFID tag using sophisticated signal processing methods. This information can be displayed in a specific map including classification of tags, their movement or history. This paper focuses on the testing and experimental verification of such a system. The results of the experiment verify the concept of an RFID locator with achieved accuracy of 2.1 m in the area of 100 × 100 m.