Radio frequency identification (RFID) system has gained attention as a new identification source that achieves a ubiquitous environment. Each RFID tag has a unique ID and is attached to an object. A user reads the unique ID of an RFID tag by using RFID readers and obtains the information on the object. One of the important technologies that use the RFID systems is the position estimation of RFID tags. Position estimation means estimating the location of the object with the RFID tag. Acquiring the location information of the RFID tag can be very useful. If a user can know the position of the RFID tag, the position estimation can be applied to a navigation system for walkers. In this paper, we propose a new position estimation method named Swift Communication Range Recognition (S-CRR) as an extended improvement on previous CRR that shortens the estimation delay. In this method, the position of an RFID tag is estimated by selecting the communication area model that corresponds to its boundary angles. We evaluated its performance by experiments and simulations of the RFID system. As the results, we found that S-CRR can estimate the position of an RFID tag comparatively accurately and quickly.

This paper investigates the communication range and interference range of millimeter-wave wireless personal area networks (WPAN) based on realistic system design. Firstly, the effective communication range of the millimeter-wave networks are calculated based on realistic physical (PHY) layer design and 60 GHz channel obtained from actual measurements. Secondly, an interference model is developed to facilitate the analysis of the impact of interferer-to-victim range on the victim link performance. It is found that system with BPSK modulation is able to support use cases with higher number of portable devices within a 3 m range, while system with 16QAM modulation is more suitable for fixed high speed data streaming devices within a shorter range of 1 m. Also, the interferer-to-victim range that causes no interference in all conditions is found to be approximately 40 m, while a 25 m range causes a typical bit error rate (BER) degradation of 1-digit (e.g. BER = 10-6 to 10-5).

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology is expected to be used as a localization tool. By the localization of RFID tags, a mobile robot equipped with an RFID reader can recognize the surrounding environment. In this paper, we propose a novel effective scheme called the communication range recognition (CRR) scheme for localizing RFID tags. In this scheme, an RFID reader determines the boundaries of the communication range when it is appropriately positioned by the robot. We evaluate the estimated position accuracy through numerous experiments. We show that the moving distance of the RFID reader in the proposed scheme is lower than that in conventional schemes.

Electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbers have been used for improving the EM environment of an electronic toll collection (ETC) system on an express highway or a wireless local area network (LAN) system in an indoor environment. In this paper, an efficient multi-ray propagation model, which uses 3D geometry and image techniques to trace multiple signal rays from transmitter to receiver, is employed to analyze the EM environment of a dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) system on an express highway. The validity of the model employed is discussed by the comparison with the results obtained by an experiment on the highways. The analysis shows that the possible undesired communications between onboard equipment that acts as a receiver and DSRC beacon which transmits the radio signals, is improved by increasing the EM wave-absorption capability of the sidewalls and the pavement of the highway. Another advantage of the employed model is that it is effective for investigating the location of wave absorbers to be set up on the highway, and it takes only a fraction of a minute for computation.

We have proposed and implemented a spread spectrum (SS) wireless switch using 2.4 GHz front-end AlN/Al2O3 surface acoustic wave (SAW) matched filter (MF). Since the SAW MF has radio frequency (RF) front-end operation, RF components are not needed in the received circuit. High impedance in the peripheral circuit using passive devices has been employed for low current consumption. The SS wireless switches have been designed with the power consumption of less than 100 µW by using the SAW MF. It is confirmed that implemented SS wireless switch has a long battery life of 10 years and communication range of 30 m.