Evaluation of low-cost RFID hardware for automated equipment tracking in first-response vehicles

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) were originally developed to take over the bar codes in managing asset tagging or tracking. RFID has its advantages of being able to be read without the line of sight. The different tags all have unique IDs too. However, the cost of RFID tags is one of the major problem why the industry is still not using them as much as we would like to.

This project brings us to hobbyist grade RFID modules and how suitable are they for equipment tracking in first-response vehicles. First-response vehicles often need to arrive at the scene as fast as they can, however they have a lot of equipment to be brought to the scene. Just checking the correct items and equipment needed could take up to several hours. Hence, this project tries to evaluate if hobbyist grade (cheap) RFID modules is useful for tagging and checking the equipment. Multiple tests and evaluation will be done in this project.

2 RFID module was used, ID20-LA and SM130. With the 2 readers, it is hoped that both of them will be suitable for equipment tracking in first-response vehicles. At the same time development of an external antenna for SM130 module will also be done. By doing so, it is hoped that the hobbyist grade RFID modules could be used in first-response vehicles.