Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-75).

Thesis (M.S.)--Marquette University, 2009. / Fabien Josse, Susan Schneider, Dean Jeutter, Advisors.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Tentzeris, Manos; Committee Member: DeJean, Gerald; Committee Member: Ingram, Mary; Committee Member: Kavadias, Stylianos; Committee Member: Laskar, Joy. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-123). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Worcester Polytechnic Institute. / Keywords: rfid, wireless sensor networks, low energy, low power, cryptography. Includes bibliographical references (p.153-172).

Thesis (M.Comp.)--Unitec New Zealand, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-73).

Thesis (M.S.) in Spatial Information Science and Engineering--University of Maine, 2006. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-156).

The study sought to investigate the use of RFID technology as inventory control in academic libraries in South Africa, with a focus on the University of South Africa and the University of Fort Hare libraries. The objectives of the study were to describe the current inventory control practices at the libraries of the University of South Africa and the University of Fort Hare in order to determine the infrastructure required for the use of RFID for inventory control for the University of Fort Hare’s libraries; to evaluate the benefits of RFID technologies, in order to gain a competitive advantage for the University of South Africa’s and the University of Fort Hare’s libraries; to identify the challenges associated with adopting RFID technology, as experienced by the libraries of the University of South Africa and the University of Fort Hare. The study adopted both the quantitative and qualitative research approaches. The researcher followed a rigorous methodological path that began with a thorough literature review coupled with the careful and thoughtful posing of research questions and objectives. A purposive sample of forty (40) respondents was selected from the library staff from both the University of South Africa and University of Fort Harelibraries. The collected data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences 23 (SPSS 23) and Microsoft Excel 2010. The findings of the study revealed reasons for both academic libraries to invest in RFID technology; these reasons include RFID’s ability to deliver self-service options, inventory control, improved reader access and improved security. The challenges related to the implementation of RFID technology are also related to staff not being rewarded by library management for being innovative; the difficulty of staff learning new technology; the staff’s inability to generate new ideas for the library; and the staff not being able to share knowledge with each other. Further research needs to be conducted by library RFID vendors in order to meet the need, of academic libraries, for RFID inventory control. RFID hardware and software (API software) should be subjected to further investigation for the purposes of research and development. Libraries should work closer with RFID vendors so as to trial and test hardware and software.

This dissertation presents a case study which attempts to implement a passive Ultra High Frequency Radio Frequency Identification (UHF RFID) system on aircraft landing gear (LG) to permit component configuration management. It is shown that a monostatic RFID system with two reader antennas, one on the LG main fitting and one in the wing bay allows up to 64 kbits of data to be associated with each LG component. A 7 dB system margin allows data on each LG component to be updated wirelessly and will also enable a passive UHF RFID-based LG health and usage monitoring system when tags with required sensors become available. Results from an electromagnetic simulation show that when a metal is illuminated by a nearby antenna the E-field distribution close to its surface is stronger than in free space. To explore if the stronger E-field can be used to enhance the performance of a conventional passive tag, a 5 cm × 6 mm × 3.02 m aluminium bar has been selected as the tagging object and connected to the reader via an RF feed. It is shown that a conventional metal tag which has a maximum free space range of 1.3 m when mounted on a metal plate can be detected up to 30 m along the aluminium bar from the RF feed. When orientated with the long axis normal to the metal surface a conventional passive tag with a dipole antenna can efficiently harvest the E- field and can be read at least 50 m away from the antenna feed. The proposed use of metal objects as a nearfield antenna is well suited to some applications, but in others a significant wireless path is still required. In such a case, a semi-passive tag can be used. It is demonstrated that a semi-passive tag only requires 14.4 ̧œ‡̧‘Š to be read over 42 m in a bistatic RFID system. Such a power consumption can be easily achieved by most energy harvesting techniques. It is demonstrated that a solar-powered semi-passive tag can be read at a range of 22 m, but its performance is still limited by multipath effects. A distributed antenna system (DAS) can be used to overcome these effects by using frequency and phase hopping techniques. It is demonstrated that 50 solar-powered semi-passive tags can be read with no missed detections over a 10 m × 20 m office area with 4 dB system margin.

Localization and motion control (navigation) are two major tasks for a successful mobile robot navigation. The motion controller determines the appropriate action for the robot’s actuator based on its current state in an operating environment. A robot recognizes its environment through some sensors and executes physical actions through actuation mechanisms. However, sensory information is noisy and hence actions generated based on this information may be non-deterministic. Therefore, a mobile robot provides actions to its actuators with a certain degree of uncertainty. Moreover, when no prior knowledge of the environment is available, the problem becomes even more difficult, as the robot has to build a map of its surroundings as it moves to determine the position. Skilled navigation of a differential drive mobile robot (DDMR) requires solving these tasks in conjunction, since they are inter-dependent. Having resolved these tasks, mobile robots can be employed in many contexts in indoor and outdoor environments such as delivering payloads in a dynamic environment, building safety, security, building measurement, research, and driving on highways. This dissertation exploits the use of the emerging Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology for the design and implementation of cost-effective and modular control techniques for navigating a mobile robot in an indoor environment. A successful realization of this process has been addressed with three separate navigation modules. The first module is devoted to the development of an indoor navigation system with a customized RFID reader. This navigation system is mainly pioneered by mounting a multiple antenna RFID reader on the robot and placing the RFID tags in three dimensional workspace, where the tags’ orthogonal position on the ground define the desired positions that the robot is supposed to reach. The robot generates control actions based on the information provided by the RFID reader for it to navigate those pre-defined points. On the contrary, the second and third navigation modules employ custom-made RFID tags (instead of the RFID reader) which are attached at different locations in the navigation environment (on the ceiling of an indoor office, or on posts, for instance). The robot’s controller generates appropriate control actions for it’s actuators based on the information provided by the RFID tags in order to reach target positions or to track pre-defined trajectory in the environment. All three navigation modules were shown to have the ability to guide a mobile robot in a highly reverberant environment with variant degrees of accuracy.