Overview of RFID-Based Indoor Positioning Technology

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology was originally invented for military uses. From 1980s, commercial RFID products started to be available and they were mainly applied in areas of supply chains, transport, manufacturing, personnel access, animal tagging, toll collection etc. Nowadays, RFID has been recognised as an emerging technology for ubiquitous positioning (UP), especially in an indoor environment. The development and implementation of RFID-based positioning technology are very fast, whilst according to the literature, little comprehensive review and convinced assessment for the latest RFID technology have been conducted, and some of the main features of the latest RFID technology have rarely or unclearly been presented in the literature, for example, the longest reading range of RFID systems, the smallest tag size and overall commercial application fields. This paper provides an overview of state-of-the-art RFID technology, particularly for the purpose of indoor positioning. It includes a review of historical and current development of RFID technology and its applications, an evaluation of up-to-date RFID-based positioning techniques and their performance as well as a prediction of future trends of RFID-based indoor positioning techniques. This paper can be a valuable guidance and solution for researchers and other end users to better understand RFID and critical factors considered on system requirements, hardware selection and positioning performance for various applications.