RFID tracking and positioning project

Hello everyone, my name is Khai Hoang I am a postgraduate student at Victoria University in Australia and I am currently doing my master's minor thesis on RFID tracking and position in a indoor environment. This is going to be my first post so please forgive or correct any mistake that I might make. I have seen several topics on this forum that are similar to what I seek but they never really got into it. So basically this is what I am researching: A inexpensive system where by using RFID tags and reader you are able to locate a moving object to a accuracy of about 1 metres in a room of say about 10m X 10m. I have researched so far a number of methods for implementing this. There is the usual reader and tag configuration, such as the one implemented by Radianse:

http://www.radianse.com/tech-overview.html

Where the reader detect the tag and report that the tag is in it's location. The problem with this system is that you would need a reader in every place that you want detected, so for my system you would need about 100 reader, and at the cost of around $100 AUD each this would be very expensive, also I want the tag to be disposable so the use of active RFID tag (the one that Radianse provide cost around $30 USD) is not suitable.

The next method is to use a reverse reader/tag configuration where instead of placing a reader in every location you want detected, you would place a tag and the person/object would have the reader on them and when the person/object near a tag the reader would send the id of the tag to the main system and that would show where they are by the id and location of the tag, this was implemented by a south African company call GV:

http://www.globalvision.co.za/case_studies/vawaterfront.php

The system is call GV chase, replacing the reader with tag with be a big improvement on cost. I contacted the company for a price check and they say the system that I wanted was part of a much larger system and that I have to contact they partner company which have still yet reply to me yet. Also as I have stated earlier, the tag on the person has to be disposable or inexpensive and having a reader on them would be also impossible.

The third system is one not using a reader but a RFID radar, this is implement by Trolley Scan:

http://www.rfid-radar.com/

The cost of the whole system is around $3000 USD, which is okay except for the fact that I am looking to implement a test system first and the spec on the RFID radar is way more accurate and longer range then I wanted. I contacted the company to see if a test system would be available, and it was about the same in price except you get a number of different types of tag instead.

I have also a system in mind that I thought might be good as well since the system I want to research doesn't have to be real-time. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find much information on memory capacity of passive RFID tags save for the Gen 1 of 96 bits and Gen 2 256 bits one. There is one company call mem-id

http://www.mems-id.com/index.htm

Which has created a passive tag with "increased" memory capacity, however they haven't reply back to any of my enquiry yet.

Sorry for the incredibly long post, so what I am hoping to get help in is if anybody else has heard of any other RFID tracking and position system that I have not mention yet or if they know of any company that can help or provide me with information so that I can get my hands on some hardware. Also any info or link on passive RFID tag memory capacity and the possibility of a passive RFID tag "communicating" with a active RFID tag.

If anybody else is also doing a project/research on this type of topic, please post a reply and maybe we can collaborate on this together.  One more thing I will be checking this at least once a day so feel free to ask any question and what not. Thank you to anybody who has the patience to read this long post and sorry once again for the length.

Thanks Amal, for your speedy reply. I know what you mean by the fact that there seem to be this big "hype" about using RFID to track people around the world as well as the privacy concern that came with it and let's not forget about the "other" not so standard concern(mark of the beast). I have to say I contribute this to the overexcitement of the mind when a "new" technology emerges and the lack of understanding that comes with it.

That being say the thesis I am working on is not about finding a system that can do indoor tracking, which I have read into a bit, the white paper offer on the Radianse website offer a pretty good overview of these kind of technology, Bluetooth, WiFi, IR, UWB etc. all with they advantages and disadvantages. I also understand the problem with interference and cost of using the different kind of RF analysis techniques, triangulation, fingerprinting and multilateration etc. That is why 2 out of the 3 method I mention above does not make use of any of that, one just use multiple reader placed at the different points where you want to detect if a active tag has been and the other one use multiple active tags at different point(say point A and point B) and when a portable reader detect that tag the reader would send this information to the central system where the system would have the location information (point A) base on the tag unique id and therefore knows where the reader and whatever it is attached to it is and then when it move on to point B the same thing happen again.
 
All the people I have talk to and all the things i have read has all point to exactly what you say about passive tags and using signal strength to detect distance. This is why I was surprise to come upon the 3rd method which I mention above. Trolley Scan's system of "RFID-radar" can not only locate passive tag in a range of 40 meters but can do it with a accuracy of 2cm. Now I was very sceptical of this, especially since the only mention of this company was in one article I think it was on RFID gazette. So I contacted them about the system and ask if there was any company in Australia that have bought a system, they say that "Monash University has just bought a system for Bandicioot research and an Australian Mining company is taking delivery of their system." Monash University is actually another university in the same state as us and is quite near our city centre, so I contacted them to ask about it of course they have yet to reply (hehehe could be university to university animosity). I also ask if there was a test system I could purchase before getting the commercial version, turns out the test system cost about the same, actually more expensive, the difference being you get more different type of tags to work with instead.

Now being a student of computer science and not a expert in the field of physic or as knowledgeable as you are in field of RFID or radio wave technology, I couldn't tell if all the data or what they say on the website is true or not. Which is why I was hoping somebody on here might have heard of or know of someone who have use they system or the technology mentioned, they say that they system is being used in 45 countries. Or if you or somebody could have a quick look at they website http://www.rfid-radar.com/ and get a overview of they system to see if it's legit or not would be great.

Any help or contribution would be fully mentioned in my thesis and all credit given where it is due. Before I forget I would like to ask for your permission and also give thanks to you Amal for the information and image you have given me so far so that I could use them in my thesis. Also if you know of any company in Australia that could provide me with the hardware needed for the first 2 method, that would be much appreciated. And if my work ever get published or I get any sort of public exposure I would make sure to give thanks to you and in my speech I would repeat over and over again the word rfidtoys.net rfidtoys.net rfidtoys.net, until everybody goes out and get a copy of your book or at least until they kick me off stage for trying to use mind manipulation. Thank you.

Thank you for replying again. My thought on what's inside the little white box is the same, a very mean finely tune piece of computer muscle. Especially since the starter kit actually comes with 3 Yagi antennas instead, this makes me think that the bulk of the cost must be place inside it's processing system which would explains why the starter kit cost the same as the commercial one. The test result show on they webpage look very promising but then again test result can be faked and so because of this we most likely won't be considering that option, at least until Monash reply back about the system they purchased and give us some reliable result.

So after having discussed this with my supervisor, we decide to go with method 1 and 2. Now I am evaluating Australian companies RFID system to see which would be best suited for the more scale down version as depicted on the following image:

Square represent fixed reader/tag use to detect the moving object represented by the diamond, the diamond can be a portable reader or tag attached to a moving object. So any help on equipment/companies recommendation would be great.

Almost forgot it seem quite coincidental that you should mention the museum example in the above post because that was the first thing my supervisor mention about this technology could be used for and also one that we are hoping to implement in the future. Well I will keep you inform if any development happens on the RFID-radar front.

Hah, I forgot to insert the link. I've updated the previous message with a link to the Microsoft paper.

I think Bluetooth is probably going to be your best bet for cheap indoor tracking, unless you wanted to get into designing your own custom radio gear :)