mReader: Concurrent UHF RFID Tag Reading

UHF RFID tags have been widely used for contactless inventory and tracking applications. One fundamental problem with RFID readers is their limited tag reading rate. Existing RFID readers (e.g., Impinj Speedway) can read about 35 tags per second in a read zone, which is far from enough for many applications. In this paper, we present the first-of-its-kind RFID reader (mReader), which borrows the idea of multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) from cellular networks to enable concurrent multi-tag reading in passive RFID systems. mReader is equipped with multiple antennas for implicit beamforming in downlink transmissions. It is enabled by three key techniques: uplink collision recovery, transition-based channel estimation, and zero-overhead channel calibration. In addition, mReader employs a Q-value adaptation algorithm for medium access control to maximize its tag reading rate. We have built a prototype of mReader on USRP X310 and demonstrated for the first time that a two-antenna reader can read two commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) tags simultaneously. Numerical results further show that mReader can improve the tag reading rate by 45% compared to existing RFID readers.