Indoor Multipath channel modeling effects on UHF-RFID Localization with Synthetic Arrays

This paper aims at experimentally demonstrating the performance enhancement of passive UHF-RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) localization systems based on synthetic array approach when appropriate propagation channel model is employed in multipath environment. A measurement setup in an indoor environment is built to create a two-ray propagation channel where a metallic reflector contribution superimposes to the LOS (Line Of Sight) path. Centimeter-level localization error can be achieved even in presence of multipath. A potential field of application resides in autonomous robots for item grasping, where even small localization improvements may determine the success of an object picking task.