Stocktaking Robots, Automatic Inventory, and 3D Product Maps: The Smart Warehouse Enabled by UHF-RFID Synthetic Aperture Localization Techniques
Matthias Gareis, Andreas Parr, Johannes Trabert, Tom Mehner, Martin Vossiek, Christian Carlowitz
Abstract
In our age of global networks and the Internet of Things, communication and identification with a transponder tagged on goods and products have become increasingly important [1]. There is not only a need for the identification of the labeled objects but also for finding their exact positions in 3D space. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) offers both and is, in fact, already used in a vast field of applications, such as access control, goods logistics, indoor localization, automation, stocktaking, and many others [2]-[6]. Figure 1 illustrates a mobile robot platform for automatic inventory rounds that is used to acquire 3D product maps with ultrahigh-frequency (UHF)-RFID technology.