A novel self-configuration method for RFID systems in industrial production environments

Wireless communication systems such as bluetooth, WLAN and RFID gain more and more importance in industrial production systems. However, high requirements with respect to availability and determinism have to be met in industrial environments with several sources of interference such as frequency converters and welding machines. Finding the optimal parameter configuration, which allows for low power consumption and reliable operation, is in many cases time-consuming and error-prone. In this paper, a self-optimizing RFID system is presented, which adapts both the transmission frequency and the transmission power of the RFID reader to the system environment. The proposed method allows for a robust communication with low energy consumption. Evaluation has been conducted for an application scenario in the SmartFactory OWL. In the investigated settings, transmission power of the RFID reader could be reduced from 27dBm to 15.2dBm on average.