RFID-enabled tracking in flexible assembly line

Abstract

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology provides a wireless means to detect and identify objects. By using RFID reader as detecting sensor, an RFID-assisted object tracking system is developed to track the object movement for a flexible manufacturing assembly line. Both range-based and range-free cooperative object tracking algorithms are analyzed for the system. And to achieve tradeoff between the reader plate's density and cost, only simple readers with omnidirectional aerial are considered in this article. To further enhance the assembly line efficiency, a particle filter model is developed to further process the object tracking results to improve the tracking accuracy. The proposed tracking system can also forecast the movement state of objects in the assembly lines. © 2009 Springer-Verlag London Limited.