Experimental and Simulation Investigation of RFID Blind Spots

Abstract

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) blind spots are the regions within the maximum operating range of the RFID system where the RFID reader fails to read the RFID tag. The existence of blind spots have troubled supply chain management and RFID system engineers because any failed or omitted reading of RFID tag would slow down the inventory tracking process. This paper studies the potential locations of blind spots as well as the effectiveness of several blind spots remedy methods such as frequency diversity, spatial diversity, polarization diversity, and antenna beam steering. Using the blind spots creation approach introduced in this paper, the locations of the blind spots can be calculated and visualized. From our simulation results, spatial diversity and polarization diversity are found to be better than all other aforementioned approaches.