Atsuji Masuda

RFID Textile and Map Making System for Large Area Positioning

We present a process for the development of an RFID textile, and have developed a map making system to support highly accurate position detection. Massively distributed RFIDs have the potential for location aware applications however time and cost are high for the deployment of the RFID tags, and correlation of the physical coordinates with each ID for making a map. We developed an RFID woven textile and a customized textile inspection machine with an automatic map making function. These developments have the potential to extend location aware systems with massively distributed tags. We examine the feasibility of a tracking system with RFID textile by using 19-meter coated textile as a carpet to the laboratory room and corridor. The system was calibrated in 38 mins and achieved a 10cm resolution.

Mobile robot self localization based on multi-antenna-RFID reader and IC tag textile

This paper presents a self-localization system using multiple RFID reader antennas and High-Frequency RFID-tag textile floor for an indoor autonomous mobile robot. Conventional self-localization systems often use vision sensors and/or laser range finders and an environment model. It is difficult to estimate the exact global location if the environment has number of places that have similar shape boundaries or small number of landmarks to localize. It tends to take a long time to recover the self-localization estimation if it goes wrong at once. Vision sensors work hard in dark lighting condition. Laser range finder often fails to detect distance to a transparent wall. In addition, the self-localization becomes unstable if obstacles occlude landmarks that are important to estimate position of the robot. Door opening and closing condition affects the self-localization performance. Self-localization system based on reading RFID-tags on floor is robust against lighting condition, obstacles, furniture and doors conditions in the environment. Even if the arrangement of the obstacles or furniture in the environment is changed, it is not necessary to update the map for the self-localization. It can localize itself immediately and is free from well-known kidnapped robot problem because the RFID-tags give global position information. Conventional self-localization systems based on reading RFID-tags on floor often use only one RFID reader antenna and have difficulty of orientation estimation. We have developed a self-localization system using multiple RFID reader antennas and High-Frequency RFID-tag textile floor for an indoor autonomous mobile robot. Experimental results show the validity of the proposed methods.

Development of RFID Textile and Human Activity Detection Applications

We developed RFID woven textile and a customized textile inspection machine with an automatic map making function. These developments have potentials to extend location aware systems in real use. In this paper, we present a process of the development of RFID, the developed map-making system and an accuracy of the automatically made map and time saving effect. And we outlined two prototypes of human activity detection using RFID textile. One is a pilot application of a tracking system using 19-meter coated RFID textile as a carpet. A persons tracking is detected by shoes that RFID readers were embedded. Another one is a pilot application of a human-activity tracking system using RFID textile wear. By wearing it, the predefined behaviour is detected by embedded RFID readers in the environment. In section 6 conclusions and future works are discussed.

Development of RFID textile for location aware system

Many interactive user interfaces require the location and orientation of the user. Recently massively distributed RFID tags are being used in location aware system by attaching RFID reader to mobile robot or a person.[Bohn and Matter 2004] [Scooter and Helal 2004] These applications use RFID tags in position detection methods, in which physical coordinates are correlated with RFIDs by using a mapping table. Although such application of RFID technology has high potential, implementing such a system in physical space using conventional methods is expensive and time consuming. To resolve these problems, we have developed an RFID textile which is able to be woven commercially using a conventional loom.