Twins: Device-Free Object Tracking Using Passive Tags

Abstract

Device-free object tracking provides a promising solution for many localization and tracking systems to monitor non-cooperative objects, such as intruders, which do not carry any transceiver. However, existing device-free solutions mainly use special sensors or active RFID tags, which are much more expensive compared to passive tags. In this paper, we propose a novel motion detection and tracking method using passive RFID tags, named Twins. The method leverages a newly observed phenomenon called critical state caused by interference among passive tags. We contribute to both theory and practice of this phenomenon by presenting a new interference model that precisely explains it and using extensive experiments to validate it. We design a practical Twins based intrusion detection system and implement a real prototype by commercial off-the-shelf RFID reader and tags. Experimental results show that Twins is effective in detecting the moving object, with very low location errors of 0.75 m in average (with a deployment spacing of 0.6 m).