RCAR Project - Robotic Context Awareness by RFID [v.1]

http://labloguera.net/blogs/rcar
First demo, alpha version....Here we go!
Base on location awareness concept, RCAR Project present an RFID approach to improve location accuracy of autonomous systems in indoor spaces.
The system is composed of these elements:
• Robot Lego Mindstorm NXT with light sensor and two servomotors. Basically, we have built a three wheel robot that is able to carry a PDA client system in the middle of the artifact to get its center position.
The robot is controlled by an application that runs in a desktop PC and gets through the client by Bluetooth (watch video: RCAR - NXT Remote Control).
• Sensing surfaces, which are physical surfaces where autonomous entities, like the NXT robot, can be located within a space. A sensing surface is divided into a grid of small squared surfaces or locations units. Each location unit has a unique identifier.
To implement this, we have used passive tags RFID, where each one represents a location unit. Therefore, a sensing surface will be a grid of tags RFID.
• PDA with Wi-Fi connection. It has been attached a compact flash passive RFID reader (HF-13.56 MHz). The reader reads tags from the sensing surface and retrieves the location unit identification code. This code is sent through the wireless communication to a localization manager.
We have developed a .NET mobile application that sends these codes to the localiton manager through low-level socket connection.
• The location manager is responsible for mapping the identification code to the physical surface that it represents. It is a socket server that is waiting a request from the RFID mobile client.
• Map representation client. The user can trace the robot route and explore its localization by means of this application client. In our case, this is a desktop application which is also connected with the location manager (watch video: RCAR -- Map Representation client). Nevertheless, it could be a mobile or a web application, according to our necessities.


Developer: Ricardo Tesoriero & Ramón Tébar Bueno
Collaborator: Jose A. Gallud

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NXT
• mindstorm
• RFID
• location
• system
• tracking
• .NET
• dotnet

[ramontebar]

Yes dude! Thanks for your comments!

Taking advantage of low prize of RFID chip, I prepared a RFID surface where any entity with a RFID reader could be place and tracked with a high resolution.

[pinkpanter9999]

great idea!! How exactly does it work? HAre there many RFID chips in the board?