Design of a portable radio-frequency-identification reader capable to reading a user memory bank for smart-building energy management

Communication is an important factor in smart-building energy management (SBEM). Many communications technologies have been applied to SBEM, including radio-frequency identification (RFID). RFID has been used not only for identification but also for carrying information, which is stored in a user memory bank attached to the tag. To access the user memory bank, an RFID reader should comply with ISO 18000-6C standards. The greatest challenge of RFID-reader technology is its short communication range, which limits the sensing area. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a portable RFID reader built to an ISO 18000-6C standard to extend the sensing area due to its moveability. The reader is designed using low-cost devices widely available on the market for ease of duplication and assembly by researchers, educators, and startups. The proposed RFID reader can read passive tags with distances up to 12 and 5.5 m for line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) communication, respectively. The minimum received-signal-strength indicators (RSSIs) for LOS and NLOS are found to be −63.75 and −59.66 dBm, respectively. These results are comparable with those of non-portable RFID readers on the market.