International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 16 Number 3 – Oct 2014
Development of a Robotic Platform for Indoor
Navigation System using RFID
Voothaluri Swetha1 , B.Santhosh Kumar2
1
pursuing M.Tech (ES), 2Assistant Professor& HOD (ECE Department)
Visvesvaraya College of Engineering and Technology (VCET), M.P.Patelguda, Ibrahimpatnam, RangaReddy, Telangana,
INDIA
Abstract— The paper presents an indoor navigation
system using RFID technology. In our project we are
implementing a robotic system for indoor navigation
application. The robotic system is an embedded system
including a RFID reader for locating and a sensor network
which contains Ultrasonic sensors and IR sensors for
obstacle detection and fall detection features respectively.
We are implementing a triangular method for an accurate
navigation of RFID tags placed in a closed area or in a
room. By continuously monitoring the RFID tags arranged
in a room, the robot will analyses the path then navigates
to the destination. The robot was implemented with an
additional features called obstacle detection and fall
detection and avoidance by connecting ultrasonic sensors
and IR sensors.
Keywords— RFID, Navigation, Traingularmethid, obstacle
detection
I. INTRODUCTION
Due to the advancement in the field of electronics,
especially in robotics, various robotic systems are developed
for different applications. There are such kind of robotic
systems that they can be useful for helping to the physically
challenged such as automatic wheel chairs. And some other
kind of robots which can be used for defence applications to
avoid the man power loss. In addition to these, we have a
challenge of accomplishing the task of indoor navigation. The
existed outdoor navigation systems based on GPS (Global
Positioning System)is accurate but limited for the indoor
navigation due to limited satellite reception. By achieving a
solution for accomplishing the indoor navigation system, we
can make it a very useful one for especially blind and
physically challenged people and also as a guide in tours.
The existed outdoor navigation systems using GPS
can work based on the location details received from the
satellites. The problem with this outdoor navigation systems is
they will get the location details as per the object position on
the earth, but the details will be same for an unit area.So, the
existed system will not give accurate values while using
indoor navigation system.
The another technique for navigation based on Wi-Fi
is some how suitable for indoor navigation system. Even
though it is suitable, Wi-Fi technology will be very costlier
due to it’s Wi-Fi cards with IP addressing. The navigation will
ISSN: 2231-5381
performed based on the distance ranging in a range of 1 to
10m. So, the cost will be an another drawback while using
Wi-Fi navigation system due to expensive Wi-FI tags.In our
indoor navigation system, we are using a RFID reader for
locating the tags placed in a random positions. The RFID
technology is a short range communication technology that
will be suitable for our indoor navigation purpose by
localizing the objects using RFID tags. The robot will hold an
RFID reader and also contains ultrasonic sensor and IR
sensors.
II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The related research of this study has three steps.
Evaluation of the passive RFID tags performance,
development of location finding model, and development of
sensor network model.There are different RFID tags with
different operating frequencies. While selecting the RFID
tags, we need to cinsider the characterstics like attenuation,
signal cross path and interference from the RFID readers and
antennas related to the frequency permitted. Other than all this
factors different types of objects connected to RFID tags may
also effect the performance of it. So before selecting RFID
tags and reader we need to study about it’s maximum distance
and signal strength.
The research on location finding section involves the
RFID tags placed in random locations in the room. The
placing of RFID tags should be in the form of euvi lateral
distance to each other i.e. while the robot movement started,
the distance from each card to all other cards should be
equal.The study on sensor networks includes the study about
ultrasonic sensors and IR sensors. Before selecting the
ultrasonic sensor, we need to consider it’s sensitivity of output
and echo waves strength when the EM waves emitted. And in
case of IR sensors selection, we need to consider the
sensitivity of the light intensity of the sensor. And also we
need to consider the wavelength band of the sensor and in
addition emmissitivity values of the object over this
wavelength.
III. SYSTEM OVERVIEW
The implemented robotic system for indoor navigation
consists of a RFID reader, IR sensors, Ultrasonic sensors, and
DC motors for robot wheels.RFID (Radio Frequency
Identification)systemsdepends on two main components to
complete their objective. A reader connected with an antenna
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 16 Number 3 – Oct 2014
that reads multiple tags. The RFID tags, that can be active
when read by the reader antenna and gives the reply with it’s
unique ID number. The RFID system will be commonly used
in large scale monitoring of inventory. The physical range of
reading of tag depends upon type of tag used (active, passive
and semi passive). The Passive tagsrequires less maintenance
but it provides least range amonst three. For localizing,
different approaches have studied while placing the RFID tags
in an indoor environment. And also in case of types of tags
used, and types also to be studied.The following table shows
the different aspects obtained from RFID localization projects
previously studied.
Deployment
RSSI
X
Tag
Type
Tag
Seperation
Error
Passive
0.21m
avg
[1]
Floor
[3]
Floor
Passive
0.5cm(horzhorz, vertvert)
0.25cm(horzvert)
0.3m
[4]
Floor
Passive
0.3m
[8]
[9]
Floor
Floor
Passive
Passive
0.5m
0.34m
0.01m
is longer than the human visible spectrum wavelengths and it
is shorter than microwaves approximately 0.75 to 1000um.
The sources of IR sensors includes the radiation from
tungstone lamps, and a specific wavelength infrared sensors.
The transmission medium for IR transmission includes
vaccum, atmosphere and fiber optics.
The robotic system is consisting of 4 wheels
connected to 4 DC motors. Basically DC motors requires high
current compared to all other components connected with
microcontroller. Typically microcontroller IO port pins will
gives the output current 10mAmp, but the DC motors requires
1Amp current to drive. So, we need some amplification of
output current of controller pins. To amplify the current from
the controller outputs, we are using an IC L293D, which is
current switching IC used to drive the DC motors. L293D
having two sets of motor drivers,so we can connect two
motors at a time with a single chip.And in addition to all
above, we have a keypad and LCD included in our robot. The
LCD is 16x2 dot matrix LCD which is used for displaying the
status of robot movements and sensor operations every time.
The keypad used here is a 4x3 phone dial keypad. It is used to
input the source and destination points regarding the RFID
tags placed in random positions in a room.
IV. WORKING DESCRIPTION
[10]
[11]
Wall
Wall
X
[16]
Land marks
X
[19]
Table
+RTOF
Active
Active
2
250m /21tags
Not Fixed
0.09m
0.133m
x axis,
0.057m
y axis
3.25m
0.23m
mean,
0.17m
median
PassiveActive
Actiive
L
P
C
2
1
4
8
IR
Sensors
Ultrasonic
Sensors
Table 1: Overview of related work on RFID
Ultrasonic sensors are also called as transducers in
general, in case they are acting for both sending and receiving,
they can call as transceivers. The RADAR principle operates
in it’s working i.e. when the electromagnetic waves emitted
from the sensor, the echo signal will get back to the source
point in the time span depends on the distance of the
destination object. This sensors produces the sound signals
with a high frequency and examins the echo signals when it
came back. And they will calculate the time taken to reach the
object and return back to the source point. It will analyses the
object range by using produced echo waves of sound signals.
The ultrasonic transducer is to convert the energy into sound
signals above the human hearing range.
The IR sensor is an electronic component which is
used for sensing the characterstics of the surrounding light of
infrared wavelength. And it can also detect the motion and
heat of an object. The infrared waves are not visible to human
eyes.The infrared wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum
ISSN: 2231-5381
Keypad
RFID
Module
16x2
LCD
L293D
Robot
Wheels
Fig 1: Block Diagram
The above figure shows the block diagram of our Indoor
navigation system based on RFID. The main aim is to
accomplish the task of indoor navigation system to be useful
for wheel chairs for disabled. In this paper we are
implementing a robot for indoor navigation. The robot
consists of a RFID reader and we have to place some RFID
tags in a random positionsin the indoor environment where we
want to use this navigation system.
The working or the robotic system starts from getting the
input from the keypad about source and destination tags. For
example, we placed 4 RFID tags in a room and robot should
move from first tag to the 3rd tag. So, here the 1st card will be
the source and 3rdtag will be the destinatiom. The keys in the
keypad will be dedicated one for each RFID tag. If we give
the input like source as 1 and destination as 3, the robot will
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) – Volume 16 Number 3 – Oct 2014
starts moving by reading the details of 1st RFID tag with the
RFID reader connected with robot. And the microcontroller
will analyzes the details of source and destination in
programming and find the distance and direction of
destination from source. When the robot started from 1st tag,
microcontroller analyzes the direction of 3rd tag from the 1st
tag as the 3rd tag given as destination, then the robot will move
according to the direction of the destination from the
corresponding source.
[7]
Elect. Eng./Electron.,Comput., Telecommun. Inf. Technol., May
2008, pp. 769–772.
H. J. Lee and M. C. Lee, “Localization of mobile robot based on
radiofrequency,” in Proc. Int. Joint Conf. Identification Devices,
2006,pp. 5934–5939.
VII.
As described above, the navigation will be done. In this,
each RFID tag will consists of the details about all other RFID
tags and their directions from that particular card. So, our
robot will navigates to any tag from any tag.Here is a special
case in using this robot for indoor navigation system. When
the robot is used in the ground floor of a building, it will be
good for indoor navigation. But incase of robot is using in
upstairs, there is a chance of falling down if it is wrongly
guided or if there is no base under robot path. So, to avoid that
kind of problems, we are using IR sensors for identifying the
base under robot moving path, we will place two pairs of IR
sensors at the front bottom of robot to sense the base.An
additional feature we are implementing with this, i.e. Obstacle
avoidance. By using an ultrasonic sensor, the robot senses if
any obstacle is detected in it’s path while moving, if any, it
will automatically changes it’s direction.
V. CONCLUSION
The paper described about the RFID indoor navigation
system. It will be an ultimate solution for indoor navigation as
there is already GPS for outdoor navigation system. The
proposed robotic system will navigate in a indoor environment
very easily using RFID tags placing in a random manner. The
obstacle avoidance and fall prevention will be more
advantageous for this robot. The technology of RFID indoor
navigation is succeefully introduced by implementing a Robot.
is technology would be useful for using in wheel chairs for
disable persons and in medical field for surgical operations as
helper for tools carrying and providing medicines for patients
in time.
AUTHOR DETAILS
VoothaluriSwetha, pursuing
M.Tech
(ES)
from
Visvesvaraya College of
Engineering and Technology
(VCET),
M.P.Patelguda,Ibrahimpatnam
, RangaReddy, Telangana,
INDIA
B.SanthoshKumar,working
as Assistant Professor & HOD
(ECE
Department)
from
Visvesvaraya College of
Engineering and Technology
(VCET),
M.P.Patelguda,Ibrahimpatnam
, RangaReddy. He obtained
Ph.D
in
Wireless
Communications.He
has
morethan nine years of
Experience in Teaching Field.
VI. REFERENCES
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[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
S. P. Subramanian, J. Sommer, S. Schmitt, and W.
Rosenstiel,“RIL—Reliable RFID based indoor localization for
pedestrians,” in Proc.16th Int. Conf. SoftCOM, Sep. 2008, pp.
218–222.
H. Tatsumi, Y. Murai, T. Araki, and M. Miyakawa, “RFID
localization forthe visually impaired,” Proc. WAC, pp. 1–6, Oct.
2008.
B.-S. Choi, J.-W. Lee, and J.-J. Lee, “Localization and mapbuilding ofmobile robot based on RFID sensor fusion system,” in
Proc. IEEE Int.Conf. Ind. Inf., 2008, pp. 412–417.
B.-S. Choi, J.-W. Lee, and J.-J. Lee, “An improved localization
systemwith RFID technology for a mobile robot,” in Proc. 34th
IEEE Annu.Conf. Ind. Electron., Nov. 2008, pp. 3409–3413.
R. Tesoriero, J. A. Gallud, M. D. Lozano, and V. M. R. Penichet,
“Trackingautonomous entities using RFID technology,” IEEE
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T. Sanpechuda and L. Kovavisaruch, “A review of RFID
localization:Applications and techniques,” in Proc. 5th Int. Conf.
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