RANGING AND POSITIONING OF

UHF RFID TAGS

H. Arthaber, K. Witrisal

RFID Real-Time Localization for Flexible Production Environments (REFlex)

Ass.Prof. Dr. Holger Arthaber

holger.arthaber@tuwien.ac.at Assoc.Prof. Dr. Klaus Witrisal
Vienna University of Technology witrisal@tugraz.at
Institute of Electrodynamics, Microwave and Circuit Engineering Graz University of Technology
Microwave Engineering Group Signal Processing and Speech Communication Lab
Gusshausstrasse 25/354 Inffeldgasse 16c
1040 Vienna, Austria 8010 Graz, Austria
Contents

• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary

2
Contents

• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary

3
Applications for Accurate Indoor Positioning Systems
Manufacturing Retail Manufacturing Logistics
Process monitoring Real-time inventory Positioning / Navigation
Process control Recommender system Safety
Theft control Flexible processes

Pick-and-place Assisted Living Emergency response systems

Error detection Fall detection Safety
Flexible processes Medication management Coordination
Behavior monitoring Monitoring

Objectives: Requirements: Technologies:

Positioning and navigation; Accuracy (5 – 20 cm); Reliability RFID; active transponders (IoT;
activity recognition; control (90 – 100%) UWB); 5G wireless systems

Images: Ubisense, SSI Schaefer, brighamyen.com, Witrisal, Jungheinrich, slashgear.com 4

Ranging/Positioning Applications
• Potential future applications for RFID
– Positioning of massive tag populations
– Activity recognition (humans interacting with goods)
• Sales floor
– Recommender systems for “brick and mortar” stores
• Warehouses
– Pick-and-place stations
• Requirements:
– large read volumes (entire rooms); decimeter-range accuracies

Images: SSI Schaefer, brighamyen.com

5
Ranging/Positioning Applications
• Traditional RFID applications domains – ranging allows for:
• RFID Gates
– distance bounding, range gating  reduce false detects
– movement direction detection
• Conveyor belts
– ordering on conveyor belt
– distance bounding for parallel belts
• Requirements:
– confined read volumes; 0.5 – 1 m accuracy; (typically) ~100 % reliability

Images: intermec

6
Contents

• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary

7
The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
Monostatic configuration: Bistatic configuration:

red ……. unmodulated signal from reader line of sight path

green … signal with tag-modulation on it other paths, e.g. via reflectors

Problems:
• „Multipath“: several ways/paths from antenna to tag
• „Reflectors“: introduce multipath and/or „blind“ the RFID reader
• „Dead spots“: no communication zones due to interference

8
The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
How does the signal look like at the RX-antenna?
• Radio waves are described by
– Frequency (e.g. 868 MHz)
– Magnitude
– Phase

• RX antenna receives unmodulated TX signal and tag‘s modulated response

+ =
large signal very small signal, shown enlarged combined signal
(dominated by TX-RX-coupling) (dominated by line-of-sight path) (tag response almost invisible)

9
Contents

• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary

10
Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning – Overview
2D Positioning Methods

1) Angle based (Triangulation)

– requires at least 2 RFID readers at
exactly known positions and orientations

2) Distance based (Trilateration)

– requires at least 2(3) RFID readers at
exactly known positions

3) Combination of Angle + Distance

– works with a single reader

11
Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning – Received Signal Strength (RSSI)
Received Signal Strength (RSSI)
• Uses the received signal power
• Gives a distance estimate

Problems:
• Multipath results in inaccuracy
• Antenna pattern influence
• Tag‘s reflection is not constant
• Many RFID reader chipsets aren‘t capable
of vector measurements (they either use real or imaginary part)

12
Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning – Angle of Arrival (AoA)
Angle of Arrival (AoA)
• Uses at least two antennas
• phase difference of tag’s signal gives an angle estimate

Problems:
• Multiple antennas needed
• Multipath will result in wrong power readings
• Many RFID readers aren‘t capable of vector
measurements ?

13
Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning – Time of Flight (ToF)
Time of Flight (ToF)
• An experiment:
– Transmission of an ultra-short pulse in an indoor environment
– Signal reflections lead to multipath propagation

14
Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning – Time of Flight (ToF)
• Influence of bandwidth:
– Time/range resolution changes vastly
• Impact of multipath propagation onto ToF ranging:
– Ultra-wideband (> 500 MHz): line-of-sight signal is clearly seen
– 10 – 100 MHz: signal distortions and fading
– Narrowband (<= 1 MHz): flat fading (only)

• Conclusion: (very) large bandwidth is needed

15
Contents

• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary

16
Positioning with Multiple Antennas
Multi-antenna systems improve the ranging and positioning performance

Three reader configurations Error ellipses: 95% of measurements are inside

with 2 reader positions are
positioning error at 50 MHz ranging bandwidth
compared. Each reader has:

1) – combined TX/RX antenna

 2 range measurements

2) – separated TX/RX antennas

 2 range + 2 bistatic meas.

3) – 2 pairs of separated TX/RX ant.

 2 x 4 independent range plus
8 independent bistatic meas. 1 41range
range 41range
range
1 bi
28 bistatic
bistatic
121TX;
TRX
TX,12RX
RX 1TX;
TRX
21TX, 21RX
RX

17
Positioning with Multiple Antennas
Comparison of numeric results over entire test area:

95% error 99% error

2 x monostatic 34 cm 38 cm
4 x bistatic 26 cm 30 cm
16 x bistatic 13 cm 15 cm

 Always statistical errors – There is no 100% guarantee!

 Multiple antennas improve performance dramatically, but
 Require complex infrastructure (antennas mounted at exact positions)
 Positioning performance with 50 MHz bandwidth sufficient for most applications

18
Contents

• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary

19
A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
What’s new?

• Direct time-of-flight measurement with 50 MHz bandwidth

• Works with standard EPC Gen2 tags
• Independent on tag chip manufacturer
• Performs ranging with a single antenna
• Measures the “echo” from the tag’s antenna and suppresses other echos

20
A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
How does the ranging signal look like?

• Spectrum of RFID and ranging signal: RFID communication

unattenuated ranging signal

reduced power ranging signal

• Without any changes, the signal violates EPC standard and radio standards
 an extremely low power ranging signal must be used
 this reduces signal to noise ratio  expect noisy distance measurements

21
A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
Nice theory… But can this work?

 Ranging Enabled RFID Reader Prototype:

– EPC compliant 868/915 MHz reader
– Real-time positioning of standard UHF EPC tags
– FPGA implementation
– Research platform:
• RF-Frontend not yet optimized
• Positioning algorithms

SPS IPC Drives 2015, Nuremburg

22
A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
Measurement results

• NXP UCODE 7 tags

• 5 tags in different distances

95

(0.5) ± 1.2 cm
1.14 ± 4.8 cm
2.06 ± 4.2 cm
2.84 ± 6.2 cm
4.22 ± 8.8 cm

23
Contents

• Ranging/Positioning Applications
• The UHF RFID Radio Szenario
• Passive UHF RFID Ranging/Positioning Methods
• Positioning with Multiple Antennas
• A new Time-of-Flight Ranging Method for Passive UHF Tags
• Summary

24
Summary

• Basic ranging principles explained

– Distance based
– Angle based

• Ranging/positioning accuracy is limited by multipath transmission

– Always statistical errors, no 100% guarantee
– More bandwidth  better accuracy
– More antennas  more accuracy

• New ToF-based ranging method

– Promising results for standard EPC Gen2 tags

25
Thank You For Your Attention!

parts of the shown results were done in the funded research project:

RFID Real-Time Localization for Flexible Production Environments (REFlex)