Solving RFID mobile reader path problem with optimization algorithms

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a one of the fastest growing and most beneficial technologies being adopted by businesses today. One of the important issues is localization of items in a warehouse or business premise and to keep track of the said items, it requires devices which are costly to deploy. This is because many readers need to be placed in a search space. In detecting an object, a reader will only report the signal strength of the tag detected. Once the signal strength report is obtained, the system will compute the coordinates of the RFID tags based on each data grouping. In this paper, algorithms using genetic algorithm, particle swarm, ant colony optimization are proposed to achieve the shortest path for an RFID mobile reader, while covering full search area. In comparison, for path optimization, the mobile reader traverses from one node to the next, moving around encountered obstacles in its path. The tag reading process is iterative, in which the reader arrives at its start point at the end of each round. Based on the shortest path, an algorithm that computes the location of items in the search area is used. The simulation results show that the ACO method works more effectively and efficiently compare to others when solving shortest path problems.