A foveated passive UHF RFID system for mobile manipulation

Abstract— We present a novel antenna and system architecture for mobile manipulation based on passive RFID technology operating in the 850MHz-950MHz ultra-high-frequency (UHF) spectrum. This system exploits the electromagnetic properties of UHF radio signals to present a mobile robot with both wideangle ‘peripheral vision’, sensing multiple tagged objects in the area in front of the robot, and focused, high-acuity ‘central vision’, sensing only tagged objects close to the end effector of the manipulator. These disparate tasks are performed using the same UHF RFID tag, coupled in two different electromagnetic modes. Wide-angle sensing is performed with an antenna designed for far-field electromagnetic wave propagation, while focused sensing is performed with a specially designed antenna mounted on the end effector that optimizes near-field magnetic coupling. We refer to this RFID system as ‘foveated’, by analogy with the anatomy of the human eye. We report a series of ex...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: IROS
• Authors: Travis Deyle, Cressel D. Anderson, Charles C. Kemp, Matthew S. Reynolds
• Keywords: IROS 2008, RFID, Robotics, Tagged Object, UHF RFID Tag