Robust RFID Localization in Multipath with Phase-Based Particle Filtering and a Mobile Robot

This work revisits particle filtering RFID localization methods, solely based on phase measurements. The reader is installed on a low-cost robotic platform, which performs autonomously (and independently from the RFID reader) open source simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). In contrast to prior art, the proposed methods introduce a weight metric for each particle-measurement pair, based on geometry arguments, robust to phase measurement noise (e.g., due to multipath). In addition, the methods include the unknown constant phase offset as a parameter to be estimated. No reference tags are employed, no assumption on the tags' topology is assumed and special attention is paid for reduced execution time. It is found that the proposed phase-based localization methods offer robust performance in the presence of multipath, even when the tag phase measurements are variable in number and sporadic. The methods can easily accommodate a variable number of reader antennas. Mean absolute localization error, relevant to the maximum search area dimension, in the order of 2% - 5% for 2D localization and 9.6% for 3D localization was experimentally demonstrated with commodity hardware. Mean absolute 3D localization error in the order of 24 cm for RFID tags in a library was shown, even though the system did not exploit excessive bandwidth or any reference tags. As a collateral dividend, the proposed methods also offer a concrete way to classify the environment as multipath-rich or not.