Toward Hazard Aware Spaces: Localization using Passive RFID Technology.

Peter Bajcsy, Rob Kooper, Miles Johnson, Kyaw Soe

Technical report NCSA-ISDA06-002 May 25, 2006

In this technical report, we investigate the use of passive RFID technology for object localization and tracking. This work is motivated by the desire to design, and build, robust smart spaces (pervasive spaces), and in particular their application in the area of hazard aware spaces. In particular we are interested in building spaces that can detect hazards and autonomously take action to gain more information about the hazard and alert the users of the space. To enable a robot to operate in such a space, accurate localization and tracking must be carried out, allowing the robot to then sense and detect hazards and alert humans about when, where, and what hazards occur. We evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of passive RFID technology as a solution to this problem. In addition, we present a methodology for building a sensor model which is required for accurate localization, and we discuss one specific method of performing probabilistic localization. Finally, we present experimental results illustrating the successful global localization of a robot using these methods.

We address the problem of building hazard aware spaces (HAS) to alert innocent people. We propose building a prototype HAS system for detecting fire, vision impairing light, earthquake, extreme sonic waves and dangerous gases. Our long term goal is to sense and detect indoor hazards and then alert humans with information about where, when and what hazards occur.

In this project, we focus on incorporating passive radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to our existing prototype HAS system in order to improve localization of hazards, objects in a building and deployed wireless sensors.