Using RFID to achieve centimeter-level positioning, the cheapest high-precision positioning technology has emerged

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

As the world's top academic conference in the field of mobile computing and networking, ACM MobiCom has an extremely strict review process, and the acceptance rate of each paper is usually between 15% and 20%. The fact that this research result of Jin Meng's team can stand out shows the cutting-edge and innovative nature of its technology.

As one of the top ten most influential technologies in the 21st century, RFID technology has a wide range of applications in logistics, retail and other fields. However, in large-scale deployment scenarios, how to achieve efficient and accurate identification and positioning of a large number of tags has always been a difficult problem in the industry. The TaGroup technology proposed by Jin Meng's team successfully solved this problem. TaGroup technology innovatively proposes concurrent scanning of tags and uses concurrent signal features to achieve simultaneous positioning of multiple targets. The technology also explores the mutual reflection phenomenon in the concurrent transmission process of RFID tags, and for the first time proposes the mutual reflection channel extraction technology to construct the channel between tags, and builds the first RFID position relationship spatiotemporal graph model based on the channel between tags. This technology not only realizes concurrent tag reading and improves the scanning speed of large-scale tags, but also uses the channel between tags to expand signal features and achieve precise positioning. Source: Shanghai Jiaotong University News Academic Network Experiments show that TaGroup can complete the centimeter-level relative position estimation of hundreds of tags within 3 seconds, which greatly promotes the scanning and tracking process of items in logistics and retail scenarios. This technological breakthrough not only liberates manpower and improves efficiency, but also provides new ideas and methods for the application of RFID technology in large-scale deployment scenarios.

Expected to broaden the application scenarios of RFID in multiple fields

The "TaGroup" technology developed by Jin Meng's team is expected to broaden the application scenarios of RFID in multiple fields due to its efficient and high-precision spatial clustering capabilities. The following are some that I can think of: Medical and health field:

medical equipment tracking: In Hospitals and medical institutions, a large number of medical devices need to be accurately tracked and managed. TaGroup technology can help medical institutions achieve this goal and ensure the availability and safety of equipment.

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

Warehousing and Logistics Management:

Item tracking and positioning: In large warehouses or logistics centers, thousands of items need to be accurately tracked and located. TaGroup technology can cluster a large number of RFID tags in a short period of time, thereby achieving accurate location estimation of items. This can greatly 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 can not only reduce inventory backlogs and waste, but also ensure timely replenishment to meet customer needs.

Improve logistics efficiency: In the logistics process, quickly and accurately identifying and locating goods is essential to ensure logistics efficiency and on-time delivery. TaGroup technology can help logistics companies achieve this goal and improve customer satisfaction.

Retail and business fields:

Smart shelf management: In retail Stores, smart shelves can track the inventory and sales of goods in real time through RFID technology. TaGroup technology can further improve the accuracy and efficiency of smart shelves, helping retailers better manage inventory and product display.

Customer shopping experience: Retailers can improve customers' shopping experience by providing personalized shopping recommendations and navigation services to customers. TaGroup technology can help retailers track customers' location and behavior in stores in real time, providing data support for providing personalized services.

The cheapest high-precision positioning technology has appeared?

TaGroup technology uses concurrent signal characteristics to achieve simultaneous positioning of multiple targets by concurrently scanning RFID tags. The core of this technology is to conduct in-depth research on the mutual reflection phenomenon during the concurrent transmission of RFID tags, and for the first time proposed the mutual reflection channel extraction technology to construct the channel between tags. Based on these channels, the research team constructed the first RFID position relationship spatiotemporal graph model, which provides a large amount of channel information for the perception system, thereby achieving efficient and accurate positioning of a large number of tags.

More importantly, compared with traditional positioning technologies, such as differential GNSS and real-time dynamic positioning (RTK), RFID technology has lower costs and maintenance difficulties.

Although differential positioning technology can achieve centimeter-level high-precision positioning, it relies on multiple reference stations and complex solution processes, which is costly and difficult to maintain. Although real-time dynamic positioning technology has the characteristics of real-time and high precision, it is greatly affected by satellite signal blocking in urban areas and also has the problem of high cost. RFID technology, with its advantages of low cost, easy deployment, and high reliability, is expected to become a more economical and affordable high-precision positioning solution.