Shanghai Jiaotong University uses RFID to achieve centimeter-level positioning, and the cheapest high-precision positioning technology has emerged.

Recently, Jin Meng's team at the John Hopcroft Computer Science Center in the School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University has made significant progress in the field of the Internet of Things. Their research, "Fast, Fine-grained, and Robust Grouping of RFIDs," was accepted by ACM MobiCom 2023, a leading conference in the field of network systems. This groundbreaking technology will significantly advance the application of RFID technology in large-scale deployment scenarios such as warehousing, logistics, and retail.

As the world's leading academic conference in mobile computing and networking, ACM MobiCom has an extremely rigorous review process, with an acceptance rate of 15%-20% for each paper. The fact that Jin Meng's team's research has been selected for this award demonstrates the cutting-edge and innovative nature of their technology.

RFID technology, one of the ten most influential technologies of the 21st century, has widespread applications in logistics, retail, and other fields. However, achieving efficient and accurate identification and location of large numbers of tags in large-scale deployment scenarios has been a persistent challenge within the industry. The TaGroup technology proposed by Jin Meng's team successfully addresses this challenge. TaGroup technology innovatively implements concurrent tag scanning, leveraging concurrent signal characteristics to simultaneously locate multiple targets. This technology also explores the interreflection phenomenon during concurrent RFID tag transmission, pioneering a mutual reflection channel extraction technique to construct inter-tag channels. Based on these inter-tag channels, it constructs the first spatiotemporal graph model of RFID position relationships. This technology not only enables concurrent tag reading, improving large-scale tag scanning speeds, but also leverages inter-tag channels to expand signal characteristics, achieving precise positioning. (Image source: Shanghai Jiao Tong University News Academic Network) Experiments have shown that TaGroup can estimate the relative positions of hundreds of tags at the centimeter level within 3 seconds, significantly facilitating item scanning and tracking in logistics and retail scenarios. This technological breakthrough not only frees up manpower and improves efficiency, but also provides new ideas and methods for the application of RFID technology in large-scale deployment scenarios.

Expected to Expand RFID Applications in Multiple Fields

The "TaGroup" technology developed by Jin Meng's team, due to its efficient and highly accurate spatial clustering capabilities, is expected to expand RFID application scenarios in multiple fields. I can think of the following: Medical and Healthcare:

Medical Device Tracking: In Hospitals and healthcare facilities, a large number of medical devices need to be accurately tracked and managed. TaGroup technology can help medical institutions achieve this goal, ensuring the availability and safety of the equipment.

Patient Monitoring and Health Management: By having patients wear devices equipped with RFID tags, medical institutions can track their location and health status in real time. TaGroup technology can improve the efficiency and accuracy of patient monitoring and health management.

Warehousing and Logistics Management:

Item Tracking and Location: In large warehouses or logistics centers, thousands of items need to be accurately tracked and located. TaGroup technology can cluster large numbers of RFID tags in a short period of time, enabling precise location estimation of items. This can significantly improve the efficiency of warehousing and logistics management and reduce manual errors.

Real-Time Inventory Management: By tracking the movement and location of items in real time, TaGroup technology can help companies achieve real-time inventory management. This not only reduces inventory backlogs and waste, but also ensures timely replenishment to meet customer needs.

Improving Logistics Efficiency: In the logistics process, quickly and accurately identifying and locating goods is crucial to ensuring efficient logistics and on-time delivery. TaGroup technology can help logistics companies achieve this goal and improve customer satisfaction.

Retail and Commercial Sector:

Smart Shelf Management: In retail Stores, smart shelves can track inventory and sales in real time using RFID technology. TaGroup technology can further improve the accuracy and efficiency of smart shelves, helping retailers better manage inventory and merchandise display.

Customer Shopping Experience: By providing customers with personalized shopping recommendations and navigation services, retailers can enhance the customer shopping experience. TaGroup technology can help retailers track customers' location and behavior within stores in real time, providing data support for personalized services.

Has the cheapest high-precision positioning technology emerged?

TaGroup technology uses concurrent scanning of RFID tags and leverages concurrent signal characteristics to simultaneously locate multiple targets. The core of this technology lies in in-depth research on the mutual reflection phenomenon during concurrent transmission of RFID tags, and the first proposed mutual reflection channel extraction technology to construct inter-tag channels. Based on these channels, the research team constructed the first RFID position relationship spatiotemporal graph model, which provides a wealth of channel information to the perception system, enabling efficient and accurate positioning of large numbers of tags. More importantly, compared to traditional positioning technologies such as differential global positioning systems (DGNSS) and real-time kinematic positioning (RTK), RFID technology offers lower costs and lower maintenance requirements.

Although differential positioning can achieve centimeter-level high-precision positioning, it relies on multiple reference stations and a complex solution process, making it costly and difficult to maintain. While RTK offers real-time and high-precision capabilities, it is significantly affected by satellite signal obstruction in urban areas and also presents high costs. RFID technology, with its low cost, ease of deployment, and high reliability, holds the potential to become a more affordable, high-precision positioning solution.