Automated RFID-Based Identification System for Steel Coils

This paper describes the radio frequency identification (RFID)-based steel coil identification system for supply chain management in the steel and iron industry. During crane operation, coil information is automatically updated by reading an RFID tag which is attached to the coil. One of the technical challenges associated with the RFID-based coil identification is the fall of the identification performance due to neighboring metallic objects. In order to cope with this problem, a system was developed in two directions. First, an erective tag attachment method considering the work process and the environmental conditions was proposed. Second, an antenna case was developed to improve the reading performance by minimizing the influence from the attached surface and focusing the RF signal to the target tag. The simulation and experimental results at the POSCO steel company verify that the proposed system can sense the target RFID tag successfully.