IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL.
70, 2021
Sensor-Fusion and Tracking Method for Indoor
Vehicles With Low-Density UHF-RFID Tags
Andrea Motroni , Member, IEEE, Alice Buffi , Member, IEEE, Paolo Nepa , Senior Member, IEEE,
and Bernardo Tellini , Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract— This article presents a novel sensor-fusion method
for indoor vehicle tracking. The phase of the signals backscat-
tered by a set of Ultra High Frequency-Radio Frequency Iden-
tification (UHF-RFID) reference tags spread in the scenario is
combined with the information acquired by on-board low-cost
kinematic sensors. The RFID data are acquired by the on-board
reader, during the relative motion of the vehicle with respect
to the static reference tags, by resembling a synthetic-array
approach, with an advantageous reduction of the reference-tag
spatial density. In particular, such phase samples are combined
with the kinematic data collected by odometers, through a
sensor-fusion approach. The method capability is investigated
through a numerical analysis that accounts for the main sys-
tem parameters. Then, the tracking capability is demonstrated
through a measurement campaign in a laboratory test set with a
UHF-RFID robot prototype equipped with commercial encoders.
Experimental results show an average localization error of
centimeter order in the estimation of medium-length trajectories
by employing only two reference tags in a relatively small area.
The proposed method does not need for any calibration procedure
and can be implemented by commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)
hardware.
Index Terms— Radio frequency identification (RFID) appli-
cations, RFID localization, RFID robot, RFID vehicle, robot
localization, synthetic aperture radar, tag localization, ultra-
high frequency (UHF)-RFID position measurement, vehicle
tracking.
I. I NTRODUCTION
N OWADAYS, the localization of mobile devices, agents,
robots, and people has gained increasing attention to
develop solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) and the
Industrial IoT (IIoT) paradigms [1]–[3]. Indeed, location
awareness represents an enabling feature for a lot of social and
industrial applications [4], [5]. In outdoor scenarios, typical
Manuscript received June 22, 2020; accepted September 20, 2020. Date
of publication September 30, 2020; date of current version January 5, 2021.
This work was supported in part by the University of Pisa within the Project
AURORA of the “Bando Dimostratori Tecnologici” (D.R 1528, September 13,
2018), in part by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research (MIUR)
in the framework of the CrossLab Project (Departments of Excellence),
and in part by the University of Pisa under the PRA 2018–2019 Research
Project “CONCEPT—COmmunication and Networking for vehicular CybEr-
Physical sysTems.” The Associate Editor coordinating the review process was
Yuan Gao. (Corresponding author: Alice Buffi.)
Andrea Motroni and Paolo Nepa are with the Department of Infor-
mation Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa 56122, Italy (e-mail:
andrea.motroni@ing.unipi.it; paolo.nepa@unipi.it).
Alice Buffi and Bernardo Tellini are with the Department of Energy,
Systems, Territory and Constructions Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa
56122, Italy (e-mail: alice.buffi@unipi.it; bernardo.tellini@unipi.it).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIM.2020.3027926
1557-9662 © 2020 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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8001314
solutions for vehicle tracking exploit the satellite navigation
systems, for example, global positioning system (GPS) and
other global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs).
However, the signal attenuation due to the building walls
hardly limits their employment in indoor scenarios. In this
context, several alternative solutions have been proposed to
develop indoor positioning systems (IPSs) that are specific for
autonomous vehicles [6].
A detailed state-of-the-art analysis discussing the main
features of the different technologies together with their critical
issues can be found in [7]. Classical solutions are based on
computer vision, ultrasounds, magnetic fields, and laser imag-
ing detection and ranging (LIDAR) [7]–[11]. More recently, a
widespread variety of radio frequency (RF) technologies such
as Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Bluetooth, UltraWide-Band (UWB), and RF
identification (RFID) have been proposed [12]–[16]. Generally
speaking, radio waves are more robust to the presence of obsta-
cles and they can guarantee good performance in dynamic and
crowded environments, such as shops or warehouses, where
the continuous motion of people or objects could interfere on
the vehicle tracking based on LIDAR or cameras, the latter
being also prone to privacy issues.
In such framework, passive RFID systems represent a
valuable solution, thanks to their low cost, easy deployment,
and maintenance [17], [18]. Furthermore, if the vehicle is
already equipped with the RFID reader for inventory pur-
poses [19]–[21], it can also be exploited for the vehicle self-
localization, with no additional hardware and then reducing
the total cost of the tracking infrastructure. When phase-based
methods are implemented [22], a RFID tracking system allows
to get a centimeter order localization error similar to the one
achieved by UWB nodes with reduced costs. Indeed, despite
UWB devices allow to cover larger areas with less reference
anchors, only additional passive RFID tags are required as
passive beacons if the robot is already equipped with RFID
hardware for inventory purposes. They are low-cost devices,
which do not require for batteries or any other powering
sources. Thus, they can be easily installed all around the
application scenario, with a spatial density depending on the
expected tracking performance. The analysis of the RFID-
based tracking systems [23]–[43] is better described later in
the next section.
Recently, the authors of this article patented a novel
RFID phase-based method for vehicle tracking [44]. The
method combines the phase of the signals backscattered by
8001314
the Ultra-High Frequency (UHF)-RFID reference tags with
some kinematic data, through sensor-fusion techniques. Phase
samples can be collected during the relative motion of the
robot-mounted RFID antenna with respect to the reference
tags, by resembling a synthetic-array approach [45], [46].
A preliminary numerical analysis was proposed in [47].
The method is mainly proposed to face with the problem of
the robot self-localization, when the latter is already equipped
with an RFID reader for inventory purposes. Thus, the cost
of the tracking systems is mainly given by the reference-tag
deployment. In complex scenarios, where strong reflections
and obstructions may occur, due to the presence of metallic
shelves or other obstacles, the proposed UHF-RFID tracking
system still guarantees good performance especially thanks to
the exploitation of the robot movement which significantly
mitigates shadowing and multipath effects. On the contrary,
UWB systems operating at frequencies greater than 1 GHz
would require for complex multipath cancellation algorithms.
Moreover, people continuously walking and moving goods
might interfere with a laser-navigated robot.
The proposed method can be employed both in small sce-
narios, for example, retails, and in big scenarios, for example,
huge warehouses, provided that the reference tags meet the
required performance in terms of sensitivity and detection
range.
This article presents the mathematical formulation of the
sensor-fusion method [44] when different kinematic sensors
are used to estimate the 3-D trajectory of the vehicle. Besides,
a particular case is described, in which the RFID phase
samples are combined with the kinematic data collected by
odometers placed on a wheeled vehicle moving at the ground
side. The method is characterized through both a numerical
analysis as well as experimental results to show the tracking
capability in real scenarios.
This article is organized as follows. Section II describes
a state-of-the-art analysis of the RFID-based systems for
vehicle tracking. Section III provides a detailed description of
the tracking method by combining RFID data and kinematic
data, together with the particular case of odometer adoption.
In Section IV, the algorithm capability is investigated through
numerical simulations by accounting for the most relevant
algorithm parameters and geometrical quantities. In Section V,
an experimental validation is presented, through real mea-
surements in an indoor scenario by an RFID robot. Tracking
performance is demonstrated through a comparison with a
standard dead-reckoning algorithm. Finally, Section VI states
conclusions and future work.
II. R ELATED W ORKS
The first tracking methods exploited the RFID system
working at the HF band (13.56 MHz) [23]. The mobile node is
a robot equipped with the HF-RFID reader which detects the
reference tags deployed at the floor side. The robot position
can be estimated as the position of the detected reference tag,
thus the localization resolution depends on the tag density at
the floor.
More recently, the employment of the RFID systems oper-
ating in the UHF band (865–928 MHz) [24] is increasing, due
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 70, 2021
to the widespread utilization of such identification technology
that can guarantee much larger reading ranges (up to 10 m).
Beyond the tag detection information [25], [26], the ampli-
tude [27] and the phase [22] of the tag backscattered signal
can be both employed for localization purposes. The signal
amplitude is commonly measured through the received signal
strength indicator (RSSI). Performance of RSSI-based solu-
tions depends on the typology of the reference tags, and they
require time-consuming calibration procedures, which should
be repeated anytime some changes occur in the scenario.
On the other hand, phase-based localization methods typically
allow for a better localization accuracy, and they are more
robust to the multipath propagation phenomena with respect
to the amplitude-based methods, as described in [28]. Phase-
based localization requires a coherent RFID receiver, which
is employed in most commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) UHF-
RFID readers. It is noteworthy that phase measurements may
be exploited only with tags operating through the modulated
backscattering principle, namely with passive or semipassive
RFID tags [18].
In phase-based UHF-RFID methods, two main issues exist.
The first one is the ambiguity due to the phase periodic-
ity, which is typically solved through the employment of
operations with phasors [29], or unwrapping techniques [30],
[31]. The second one is the presence of a phase offset term,
which is unknown a priori and depends on the tag typology,
the reader antenna, the transmitted power level, and the
tag–reader relative orientation. To release from long calibration
procedures, the phase difference of arrival (PDoA) approach
can be employed.
To reduce the number of reference tags when performing
vehicle tracking in relatively large spaces, RFID data can be
suitably combined with data from proprioceptive kinematic
sensors, such as encoders, optical flow sensors, or Inertial
Measurement Units (IMUs) equipped with accelerometers,
gyroscopes, and magnetometers. The data combination typ-
ically occurs through a sensor-fusion approach [32], [33].
Usually, data fusion algorithms rely on sequential Bayesian
or Monte Carlo estimators for dynamic systems, such as, for
example, the Kalman Filter and its extensions, for example,
Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) or Unscented Kalman Filter
(UKF), and the Particle Filter (PF). In some cases, smoothing
algorithms, or finite impulse response filters are adopted too.
Typically, two main algorithm steps can be recognized: a
prediction step and an update step. The first one is usually
executed through the kinematic sensor data, for example,
odometry data, and it consists of a first hypothesis on the
vehicle path. In detail, the moving agent trajectory is estimated
through successive integrations of kinematic data, namely with
a dead-reckoning approach [34], [35]. After that, the RFID
data are employed in the update step, to compensate for the
drift of the estimated trajectory due to the errors accumulated
by the kinematic sensors.
In [36] and [37], the mobile node, for example, a robot,
is equipped with an RFID reader, and fixed RFID reference
tags are deployed in the environment. Then, sensor-fusion
techniques or estimation algorithms such as Kalman filter, PF,
or their variations are adopted for positioning estimation.
MOTRONI et al.: SENSOR-FUSION AND TRACKING METHOD FOR INDOOR VEHICLES 8001314

The localization method proposed in [38] relies on a fixed

infrastructure of reader antennas. The phase measurement
ambiguity is solved by using the EKF and the Rauch–Tung–
Striebel smoother, where the dynamic state includes the posi-
tion, the velocity, and the phase-offset term for each antenna.
Such a solution allowed a root mean square of the localization
error equal to 1–2 cm in an indoor scenario of 3 m × 3 m,
when four reader antennas are used.
In [39], the robot localization is achieved through a multi-
hypothesis EKF that combines the data from odometry sensor
and the phase of the signal backscattered by custom reference
tags placed at the ceiling. A calibration procedure for each
reference tag is required to estimate the phase-offset term.
Such a method is extended in [40], by employing both RSSI
and phase data. The new algorithm shows higher robustness
with respect to the errors on the knowledge of the reference-
tag positions. Moreover, the phase offset calibration procedure
is avoided. Experimental results showed that a robot can be
localized with an average error of around 4 cm in a 4 m ×
3 m room, by employing two reference tags in the whole area.
Finally, the authors state that the method can be employed
in scenarios of arbitrary size by deploying a reference tag
every 2 m2 . In [41], the issue of not exact knowledge of the
RFID tag position is addressed by proposing a Simultaneous
Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithm.
In [42], the authors investigate the local nonlinear observ-
ability of the system composed by a unicycle robot able to
measure the PDoA data from multiple UHF-RFID reference
tags in the environment. It is demonstrated that a dynamic
position estimator based only on the signal phase measurement
may be effective, when an UKF algorithm is adopted. The
prediction step is done with the encoder data, while phase data
are employed to estimate the radial speed of the vehicle with
respect to the detected tags. Then, the latter is used as input
Fig. 1. (a) Sketch of the UHF-RFID vehicle moving in the indoor scenario
for the update step. Preliminary results in a realistic simulated where UHF-RFID tags are deployed. (b) Graphical representation of the
scenario show that the localization error is of centimeter order trajectory portions along which the RFID and the kinematic data are collected
with a 99% probability. The global observability of the same to perform the vehicle tracking.
system is discussed in [43].
At the best of the authors’ knowledge, the phase-based
UHF-RFID localization methods based on a sensor-fusion during the vehicle movement. Thanks to the agent movement,
approach still require a set of reference tags with a relatively the phase samples of the tag backscattered signal are collected,
high spatial density. The sensor-fusion method for vehicle so resembling the synthetic-array concept that allows for
tracking recently patented by Buffi et al. [44], which is deeply phase-based localization with a tag low-density grid.
investigated and characterized in this article, allows to deploy The proposed tracking method aims to estimate the 3-D
a low-density grid of reference tags. They can be installed on vehicle route through consecutive estimations of different
the floor, at the ceiling or on any fixed infrastructure placed trajectory portions [Fig. 1(b)], which can be either overlapped
all around the scenario. Besides, it overcomes both the phase or not, as better described later in this section.
ambiguity problem and the offset problem, as better described
in the following.
A. Signal Model
Let us assume that, during its movement, the vehicle posi-
III. RFID-BASED V EHICLE T RACKING M ETHOD
tion evolves according to p(t) = [x(t), y(t), z(t)]T ∈ R3 ,
Let us consider a vehicle moving in an indoor scenario and t ∈ R+ . When considering real systems, the continuous
equipped with a UHF-RFID reader connected to at least one time vector becomes a discrete sequence of values tk with
antenna and a set of kinematic sensors, as depicted in Fig. 1(a). temporal sampling of t, where k ∈ N+ is the sampling index.
The proposed RFID-based method aims to perform the vehicle Consequently, the vehicle position vector becomes a discrete
tracking, by exploiting multiple readings acquired from a set sequence of values p(t = t k ) = p(tk ) = p[k], which is briefly
of passive reference tags placed all around a 3-D scenario, indicated as pk = [x k , yk , z k ]T ∈ R3 .

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8001314 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 70, 2021

Through the article, the subscript “k” indicates the k-th B. RFID-Based Tracking Method
value of the discrete sequence of the corresponding parameter Now, we consider a set of hypothetical positions P =
at the time tk . {1, . . . , N p } of the vehicle initial position p1 . We name those
Now, the vehicle position at the k-th instant pk can be as particles, by inspiring to the PF algorithms [44]. Thus, the
written as a displacement pk ∈ R3 relative to the position at (p)
position of the p-th particle at the initial instant, q1 ∈ R3 ,
the previous instant k − 1, according to can be modeled as
⎛ ( p) ⎞
pk = pk−1 + pk ∀k ∈ Wn . (1) ux
(p) ⎜ ( p) ⎟
q1 = p1 + H⎝ u y ⎠ ∀ p ∈ P (6)
It is noteworthy that the vehicle/moving agent position repre- ( p)
uz
sents the position of the RFID reader antenna phase center. All
( p) ( p) ( p)
around the scenario, NT passive tags are considered, which are where [u x , u y , u z ]T ∈ R3 is a vector of normal random
placed at known positions pTj = [x T j , yT j , z T j ]T ∈ R3 , being variables with zero mean value and unitary variance. Without
j ∈ WT , the tag index and WT = {1, . . . , NT } the set of tags. loss of generality, we assumed H ∈ R3×3 to be diagonal and
Along the path, the vehicle-mounted kinematic sensors defined as
measure the kinematic data with a time sampling of t, ⎛ ⎞
σx 0 0
by guaranteeing the local observability of the dynamic
H = ⎝ 0 σy 0 ⎠ (7)
system [43]. 0 0 σz
Similarly, the UHF-RFID reader collects the tag backscat-
tered signals, and without loss of generality, we suppose that where σx , σ y , and σz are the standard deviations of the initial
the tag replies to the reader queries at the same instants as position errors.
those of the kinematic data collection, namely with the same Starting from the set of N p particles, it is possible to build
time sampling of t. a set of particle trajectories, namely a set of hypothetical
Now, by considering the n-th portion of the vehicle trajec- trajectories of the vehicle. In particular, the p-th particle
(p)
tory, we suppose to collect a set Wn = {1, . . . , Nn } of both position at the k-th instant, qk ∈ R3 , can be derived as a
kinematic data and RFID phase data, being Nn the number function of the position at the previous step (k − 1) according
of collected samples. The selection of such parameter will be to:
⎛ ( p) ⎞
discussed later. Thus, along the n-th portion the index k ∈ Wn . ux
The phase of the signal backscattered by the j -th tag at the (p) (p) ⎜ ( p) ⎟
qk = qk−1 +pk + α ⎝ u y ⎠ ∀k ∈ Wn , ∀ p ∈ P (8)
k-th instant can be written as ( p)
uz
4πdk, j
ϕk, j = + ϕ0, j ∀k ∈ Wn , ∀ j ∈ WT (2) where α is empirically determined on the basis of the class of
λ
accuracy of the kinematic sensors and the speed of the vehicle,
where and pk ∈ R3 represents the kinematic-based displacement
  of the vehicle position at the k-th instant with respect to the
dk, j = pk − pTj 2 ∀k ∈ Wn , ∀ j ∈ WT (3) previous one, affected by error. Such displacement can be
written as
is the distance between the vehicle position pk and the j -th ⎛ ⎞
tag position pTj , λ is the free-space wavelength, and ϕ0, j is εx k
the phase offset of the j -th tag, which includes the effect of pk = pk + ⎝ εyk ⎠ ∀k ∈ Wn (9)
cables, reader components, and the tag typology itself [27]. εzk
 · 2 represents the Euclidean norm. where [εxk , εyk , εzk ]T ∈ R3 is the error vector on the
To release from the knowledge of the phase offset, we con- displacement of the vehicle position at the k-th instant, when
sider the phase difference between each sample and a reference considering measurements done by the kinematic sensors.
one, to construct the so-called relative phase history. Indeed, Thus, N p particle trajectories starting from the random
the above phase offset can be considered as constant if the (p) (p)
position q1 up to the position qNn are formed. They have
tag is detected within the main beam of the reader antenna different shapes due to the random component in (8), which
radiation pattern. Without loss of generality, we choose the is the process noise [49] necessary to emulate the effect of the
first available sample as reference (k = 1), thus the relative typical uncertainty growth over the time of the position suc-
phase history reads as follows: cessive updates by proprioceptive kinematic sensors. We could
imagine the particles as a cloud of points which moves
ϕ k, j = ϕ k, j − ϕ1, j ∀k ∈ Wn , ∀ j ∈ WT . (4)
and expands: more the cloud is wide, more the hypothetical
The term ϕ 1, j becomes equal to zero and we build the trajectories are widespread.
phasor sequence bT j ∈ C Nn for the j -th tag Now, from the particle trajectories it is possible to build a
(p)
set of hypothetical distances between the particle position qk
 T and the j -th tag
bT j = 1, e− j ϕ 2, j , . . . , e− j ϕ k, j , . . . , e− j ϕ Nn , j  
( p)  (p) 
∀ j ∈ WT . (5) d̃k, j = qk − pTj  ∀k ∈ Wn , ∀ j ∈ WT , ∀ p ∈ P. (10)
2

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MOTRONI et al.: SENSOR-FUSION AND TRACKING METHOD FOR INDOOR VEHICLES 8001314

From here, the hypothetical phase of the signal backscattered The number of consecutive displacements which allow to
by the j -th tag can be calculated (11) and consequently a get the traveled path higher than a fixed threshold L th , deter-
set of hypothetical relative phase histories (12) can be written mine the number Nn of the points of the set Wn . Now, the
according to (4) subset On ⊂ Wn is chosen in such a way to estimate the
( p) first part of length L est of the vehicle trajectory portion of
( p) 4π d̃k, j
φk, j = ∀k ∈ Wn , ∀ j ∈ WT , ∀ p ∈ P (11) length L th [Fig. 1(b)]. In other words, the tracking method
λ processes groups of data collected during the vehicle trajectory
( p) ( p) ( p)
φk, j = φk, j − φ1, j ∀k ∈ Wn , ∀ j ∈ WT , ∀ p ∈ P. (12) portion of length L th to estimate a trajectory portion of length
Thus, a set of N p hypothetical phasor sequences can be L est ≤ L th .
derived (13) The trajectory length threshold L th is a parameter that
T
affects the tracking performance. Indeed, the proposed RFID-
( p) ( p) ( p)
(p)
aT j = 1, e− j φ2, j , . . . , e− j φk, j , . . . , e− j φ Nn , j based method is a synthetic-array approach, which requires
a relative motion between the vehicle and the tags, and
∀k ∈ Wn , ∀ j ∈ WT , ∀ p ∈ P. (13)
exhibits a localization accuracy that improves for longer
Now, for the j -th detected tag, it is possible to compare the paths. On the other hand, longer spatial intervals L th may
phasor sequence (5), with the set of the hypothetical phasor improve the method accuracy at the expense of longer process-
sequences through a matching index (14) ing temporal intervals, especially for low-speed vehicles.
 
 (p)  This trade-off must be considered if real-time tracking is
 bTj , aTj  mandatory.
( p)
Cn, j =     ∀ j ∈ WT , ∀ p ∈ P (14)
bT   (p)  Next, the estimation procedure is repeated by using a
j 2 aT j 
2 new set of kinematic and RFID data, which are collected
being · the scalar product operator and the operator  · 2 during a vehicle trajectory portion of length L th , consecutive
applied to a vector of complex numbers must be intended as with respect to the previous estimated portion of length
the Euclidean norm in the complex domain. Consequently, L est . If L est = L th , the processed data always belong to
( p)
Cn, j is a scalar real number in the [0, 1] interval. not-overlapped trajectory portions, otherwise data belong to
Then, for the p-th particle, we combine the matching overlapped trajectory portions.
( p)
indexes Cn, j obtained from all the detected tags ( j ∈ WT ) After determining the estimated vehicle position p̂k for
through an average operation according to (15): k ∈ On , we select a subset Sn ⊂ P of hypothetical trajectories
that show higher average matching indexes [50]. In particular,
1 
NT
( p) ( p)
Cn = C ∀ p ∈ P. (15) we select a factor η ∈ (0, 1] of the particles with the best
NT j =1 n, j average matching index and we get a number of “survivor”
Since the matching index (14) is in the interval [0, 1], the aver- particles equal to Nsp in such a way that Np /Nsp = 1/η ∈
age matching index (15) belongs to the same interval. N+ . Before to proceed with a further portion estimation,
( p) to overcome the “sample impoverishment” phenomena [51],
The Cn is a kind of likelihood index which indicates if
it is required to replicate the selected Nsp particles of a factor
the p-th particle trajectory is close or not to the actual vehicle
( p) 1/η. In other words, each survivor particle is copied 1/η times.
trajectory. In fact, a set of similar d̃k, j values with respect to
( p) Therefore, we can start the consecutive estimation procedure
the dk, j values leads to a set of φk, j close to the ϕ k, j , thus with a set of N p particles, by keeping unchanged the particle
( p)
resulting in a high value of the average matching index Cn . number employed in the n-th trajectory portion estimation. The
( p)
After determining the Cn indexes for all the particles, block diagram of the proposed tracking method is reported
they are employed to estimate the 3-D vehicle position in Fig. 2.
p̂k = [x̂ k , ŷk , ẑ k ] at the k-th step through a weighted average It is noteworthy that, due to the anticollision protocol of
operation: the EPC Global C1 G2 [52], the tag replies occur at different
  ( p)   time slots. To account for such phenomena, the algorithm
(p)
p∈P Cn qk should be applied by considering a subset Wn j of the set Wn
p̂k =   ( p)  ∀k ∈ On (16)
which is different for each j -th tag. The reference reading
p∈P C n
to build the relative phase history becomes the first available
where On ⊂ Wn is a subset of the set of the processed number reading of each subset Wn j . This peculiarity makes possible to
of RFID and kinematic readings. run the algorithm even in large areas with a low-density tag
In more detail, first, we need to determine a selection deployment, once a few successful readings or intermitting
criterion of the set Wn . During the vehicle movement, it is readings are available. We recommend the tag deployment in
possible to estimate the pk vehicle displacement from the any position to ensure that at least one RFID tag is inside
kinematic sensor measurements, as better described in the next the robot antenna detection area for each trajectory portion.
section. By summing such consecutive displacements, it is Besides, we recommend to carefully choose the tag chip
possible to derive the vehicle traveled path at the k-th instant which achieves the detection range required by the application
scenarios, being either a small retail shop or a huge warehouse.

k
 
Lk = ph  . (17) If it is not possible, a slight performance degradation must be
2
h=1 accepted.

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8001314
Fig. 2. Flowchart of the proposed sensor-fusion tracking method.
C. Displacement Estimation With Odometry
As described in the previous section, the tracking method
exploits an estimation of the vehicle displacement pk
obtained by the kinematic sensors. They can be usually
accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, encoders, or opti-
cal flow sensors.
In the following, we describe the employment of rotary
encoders placed on the left and right wheels of a vehicle to get
the above-mentioned displacement along the trajectory. In this
particular case, the vehicle moves on the ground to perform
bidimensional trajectories.
We consider a planar unicycle-like vehicle with a differential
drive kinematics, and the adopted dynamic motion model
is the unicycle-robot motion model. We denote with rk =
[x Ck , yCk , z Ck ]T the vehicle rotation center position at the k-th
instant [Fig. 1(a)]. The z-coordinate of the vehicle is z Ck = z C ,
which is constant since the vehicle can only move on the
ground floor, coincident with the x y plane.
We also denote with ϑk the vehicle orientation with respect
to the global reference frame [Fig. 1(a)]. The initial position
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of the vehicle rotation center is r1 = [x C1 , yC1 , z C ]T and the
initial orientation is ϑ1 . At the k-th instant, the vehicle rotation
center position rk is determined through the odometry data by
computing the displacement rk with respect to the previous
position as follows:
⎛ u +u ⎞
Rk Lk
cos(ϑk−1 )
⎜ 2 ⎟
⎜ ⎟
rk = ⎜ u Rk + u L k ⎟
⎜ sin(ϑk−1 ) ⎟ ∀k ∈ Wn (18)
⎝ 2 ⎠
0
where u Rk and u L k represent the distance run by the right and
the left wheel, respectively, between the (k −1)-th and the k-th
instants. Contextually, the vehicle orientation ϑk is calculated
according to
u R − u Lk
ϑk = ϑk−1 + k ∀k ∈ Wn (19)
la
being la the length of the robot axle. To determine the
vehicle displacement pk , namely the RFID reader antenna
displacement, it is required to apply a roto-translation to
the displacement vector rk of the vehicle rotation center
according to
⎛ ⎞
cosϑk −sinϑk 0
pk = rk + ⎝ sinϑk cosϑk 0 ⎠ A ∀k ∈ Wn (20)
0 0 1
where A = [x A , y A , z A ]T is the distance of the RFID
antenna phase center with respect to the vehicle rotation center
as shown in Fig. 1(a).
The encoders measure the distance run by the right and the
left wheels with a certain uncertainty. The latter depends on the
quantization process of the sensor, namely on both the encoder
angular resolution and the wheel radius. Thus, we model it as
uniform random variable in the interval U[0, qe ], where qe
represents the encoder quantization interval. This determines
the measurement error vector [εx k , εyk , εzk ]T in the dis-
placement measurements in (9).
Since the phase of the RFID backscattered signal mainly
depends on the tag–reader distance (2), rather than the
tag-antenna relative orientation, the proposed tracking algo-
rithm does not foresee to make an update of the vehicle
orientation on the basis of the RFID measurements as usual
in phase-based methods for vehicle tracking [39], [40].
IV. N UMERICAL A NALYSIS
To show the effectiveness of the proposed sensor-fusion
method, a numerical analysis is carried out. We built a simula-
tion framework with the MATLAB software. It allows for the
evaluation of the RFID-based tracking method performance
when different parameters may change: speed and trajectory
of the vehicle, density and configuration of the reference tags,
signal-to-noise ratio, level of multipath interference caused by
obstacle reflections, uncertainty in the phase measurements
from the reference tags, and uncertainty in the kinematic data
measurements.
In particular, the simulator allows for the simulation of
several kinematic sensors, as for example an IMU [23], or the
MOTRONI et al.: SENSOR-FUSION AND TRACKING METHOD FOR INDOOR VEHICLES 8001314

Fig. 3. Example of the “S-shape” trajectory run by the vehicle in an indoor

scenario with several reference tags.

encoders as investigated in this article. As a first example,

we consider a vehicle equipped with rotary encoders and an
RFID reader which moves along an “S-shaped” trajectory
(Fig. 3) on the ground with an average speed of 1 m/s. The path
is 60 m long, thus N R = 6000 samples are available from the Fig. 4. Simulated phase samples, normalized over π , of the signal backscat-
encoders, if considering a sampling time t = 10 ms. Without tered by the reference tags A–C, when the vehicle follows the “S-shaped”
loss of generality, we consider the antenna phase center as a trajectory in Fig. 3.
point moving on the ground plane and we show 2-D tracking
performance.
We suppose to know the vehicle initial position p1 , thus
The initial vehicle position is p1 = [x 1 , y1 , z 1 ]T =
the particles are randomly initialized around it. This can be
[0, 0, 0]T m, and its initial orientation is ϑ0 = π/2 rad. At the
seen as the vehicle entrance in the target area. Fig. 5 shows
path curves, the vehicle has an angular speed ω = 1 rad/s.
the estimated trajectory (dashed green line) by applying the
The encoder quantization interval is set at qe = 3.5 mm.
proposed sensor-fusion tracking method by considering the
Besides, we consider a grid of UHF-RFID reference tags
portion n = 1 [Fig. 5(a)], n = 15 [Fig. 5(b)], n = 27
placed at a different height with respect to the vehicle trajec-
[Fig. 5(c)], n = 55 [Fig. 5(d)], n = 80 [Fig. 5(e)], and the
tory plane, as for the case of an installation at the ceiling.
last one corresponding to n = 116 [Fig. 5(f)]. The reference
They are arranged on a regular grid of step s = 5 m
tags are also depicted (gray star markers), by underlying
and the height difference between the tag place and the
with the black circular markers the tags that are detected
vehicle plane is h = 3 m from the vehicle, that is here
along the considered trajectory portion. Fig. 5 even shows
considered as a single point rather than as a rigid body. The
the actual robot trajectory (blue solid line), the set P of
first three tags in close proximity with the first portion of
the particle trajectories (cyan circle markers), and the esti-
the vehicle “S-shaped” trajectory are the Tag A, the Tag
mated trajectory by employing only the odometry data (dash-
B, and the Tag C, placed at pTA = [0, 0, h]T m =
dotted red line), namely by estimating the vehicle trajectory
[0, 0, 3]T m, pTB = [0, s, h]T m = [0, 5, 3]T m, and
from (9) only, which represents a standard dead-reckoning
pTC = [0, 2s, h]T m = [0, 10, 3]T m, respectively.
approach [34], [35].
By referring to typical characteristics of UHF-RFID com-
The results are obtained for the following algorithm parame-
mercial readers and tags, we assume that the reader antenna
ters: [σx , σ y , σz ] = [0.3, 0.3, 0] m, N p = 500, α = 5 × 10−4 ,
installed on the vehicle facing upward has a half-power
L th = 1 m, L est = 0.5 m, NT = 63, and η = 0.25. From
beamwidth HPBW = 105◦, with a reading range of rr = 5 m.
the results in Fig. 5, it is apparent that the proposed tracking
Without loss of generality, we suppose that the tag replies to
method allows to reduce the localization error with respect to
every reader query, anytime it is inside the antenna reading
the case in which only the odometry data are employed.
region. The measurement error in the RFID phase sample is
The number of detected tags along each n-th trajectory por-
modeled as a Gaussian random variable with zero mean value
tion is represented in Fig. 6 (blue circular markers). It varies
and standard deviation of σϕ = 0.1 rad, by comprising both
between 1 and 4 tags, depending on the distance between
thermal noise and multipath effects.
the reader antenna and the reference tags in the considered
Fig. 4 shows the phase samples of the signal backscattered
trajectory portion.
by the reference tags A–C, when the RFID vehicle follows the
“S-shaped” trajectory of Fig. 3, together with the trajectory
portion during which the RFID antenna detects each tag. A. Effect of the Reference-Tag Density
The operating frequency is set to f 0 = 865.7 MHz, channel A further simulation was carried out by adopting a
#4 according to the European Telecommunications Standards larger distance between the reference tags. In particular,
Institute (ETSI). we employed a grid step of s = 8 m, by keeping the same

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8001314
Fig. 5. Simulated “S-shaped” actual and estimated trajectories with a reference-tag grid step of s = 5 m, by considering data acquired along the
(a) n = 1 portion, the (b) n = 15 portion, the (c) n = 27 portion, the (d) n = 55 portion, the (e) n = 80 portion, and the (f) n = 116 portion.
Fig. 6. Number of detected RFID tags versus the trajectory portion n by
varying the tag grid step s.
Fig. 7. Simulated “S-shape” actual and estimated trajectories with a
reference-tag grid step of s = 8 m.
algorithm parameters as those used for getting the results
in Fig. 5. The trajectory (dashed green line) estimated by
applying the proposed sensor-fusion tracking method is repre-
sented in Fig. 7 together with the actual robot trajectory (blue
solid line) and the trajectory estimated by employing only
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 70, 2021
the odometry data (dash-dotted red line). The corresponding
number of detected tags along each vehicle portion is reported
in Fig. 6 (red square markers). Tracking performance is still
satisfying (Fig. 7) even if less tags are used in this case.
For the considered grid step of s = 5 m, we analyzed
the error on the estimation of the x-coordinate and the
y-coordinate at the k-th instant, with respect to the distance
traveled by the vehicle along the trajectory: x = x̂ k − x k
[Fig. 8(a)] and y = ŷk − yk [Fig. 8(b)], respectively. We also
calculated the residual cartesian error [Fig. 8(c)] between
the estimated p̂k and the actual position pk , defined as
d = ( x + y)
2 2 1/2
. By using the odometry data through the
dead-reckoning approach (dash-dotted red line), the residual
cartesian error reaches a value of around 3.3 m at the end of
the path, with a maximum value of nearby 4.5 m after traveling
a path 48 m long. When using the proposed sensor-fusion
tracking method, above error becomes less than 10 cm (dashed
green line).
Performance is not significantly modified by the tag spacing
reduction, as shown in Fig. 9 through the comparison of
the localization errors when varying the s parameter. For
s = 8 m, the residual cartesian never exceeds 10 cm
(solid pink line). This suggests a satisfactory robustness of
the method with respect to the reference-tag deployment and
spacing. Indeed, the method can work by employing the RFID
phase data from a single tag at-a-time during each trajectory
portion, by keeping a valuable improvement in the tracking
performance with respect to the dead-reckoning approach.
It is noteworthy that, if no RFID tags are detected in the n-th
trajectory portion, the algorithm can proceed by exploiting the
dead-reckoning approach until a new tag is detected.
Fig. 10 shows the histograms of the localization error on
the x-coordinate [Fig. 10(a)], the y-coordinate [Fig. 10(b)],
and the histogram of the residual cartesian error [Fig. 10(c)],
by applying the dead-reckoning approach (red bars) and the
MOTRONI et al.: SENSOR-FUSION AND TRACKING METHOD FOR INDOOR VEHICLES 8001314

Fig. 8. Simulated localization errors for two tracking methods by considering the “S-shaped” vehicle trajectory of Fig. 5 with a reference-tag grid step of
s = 5 m. (a) Error on the x-coordinate. (b) Error on the y-coordinate. (c) Residual cartesian error.

Fig. 9. Simulated localization errors for the proposed sensor-fusion tracking method by considering the “S-shaped” vehicle trajectory of Fig. 5 by varying
the reference-tag grid step of s. (a) Error on the x-coordinate. (b) Error on the y-coordinate. (c) Residual cartesian error.

Fig. 10. Histogram of localization errors for two tracking methods by the “S-shaped” trajectory of Fig. 5 for ten different Monte Carlo simulations with
s = 5 m and L th = 1 m. (a) Error on the x-coordinate. (b) Error on the y-coordinate. (c) Residual cartesian error.

sensor-fusion tracking method with s = 5 m and L th =
1 m (green bars) to the “S-shaped” trajectory of Fig. 3.
The results are related to 6000 positions along the trajectory
and ten repeated Monte Carlo simulations. A path step of
10 cm is employed in the graphs; thus, a main bar can be
noticed for the sensor-fusion tracking method, which reaches
nearby the 100% relative frequency. On the contrary, the error
distributions of the dead-reckoning approach are in the interval
[−5, 5] m for the x-coordinate and the y-coordinate, while the
residual cartesian error is in the interval [0, 7] m.
B. Effect of the Portion Length Threshold L th
The effect of the length of the trajectory portion threshold
L th on the tracking performance was also investigated. We still
consider the “S-shaped” trajectory of Fig. 3 with the reference-
tag grid step of s = 5 m. Fig. 11 shows the histogram
of the localization error on the x-coordinate [Fig. 11(a)], the
y-coordinate [Fig. 11(b)], and the histogram of the residual
cartesian error [Fig. 11(c)], when the trajectory length thresh-
old is equal to L th = 1 m (blue bars), L th = 2 m (orange bars),
and L th = 3 m (green bars). The histogram still considers
the localization results of 6000 positions of the “S-shaped”
trajectory of Fig. 3, for ten repeated Monte Carlo simulations.
When increasing the length L th , the localization error
reduces, as shown by the relative frequency bars. Indeed, when
the RFID data are acquired and processed along a longer path,
the average matching indexes (15) of the considered particle
trajectories are more distant each other. This means that such
parameter is more significant to estimate the vehicle trajectory
for longer trajectory portions, according to the synthetic-array
theory [29].
C. Effect of the Sensor Accuracy
The class of accuracy of the kinematic sensors impacts on
the method performance.
We expect that larger errors of the rotary encoders lead to
a lower accuracy for the sensor-fusion tracking method.
To verify such effect, we investigated the impact of the
encoder resolution on the dead reckoning and the sensor-fusion
tracking method, when the robot moves along a “C-shape”
trajectory of length 4 m (Fig. 12) similar to that acquired
during the experimental analysis (Section V).
The robot had an average speed of 0.16 m/s, and
N R = 1696 data samples were acquired by the encoders
along the whole trajectory. Two reference RFID tags were
attached at the ceiling at pT1 = [1.00, 0.65, 2.40]T m and

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8001314
Fig. 11. Histogram of localization errors versus L th variations for the proposed method by considering the “S-shaped” trajectory of Fig. 5 for ten different
Monte Carlo simulations with s = 5 m. (a) Error on the x-coordinate. (b) Error on the y-coordinate. (c) Residual cartesian error.
Fig. 12. Simulated results for “C-shape” actual and estimated trajectories
by simulated data, when two reference tags are considered.
pT2 = [1.00, 1.25, 2.40]T m, respectively. The height of the
antenna from the floor was z k = 0.68 m, so h = 1.72 m.
The other simulation parameters were as follows: L th =
2.5 m, L est = 0.3 m, [σx , σ y , σz ] = [0.1, 0.1, 0] m, N p = 500,
α = 5 × 10−4 , η = 0.25. We varied the encoder quantization
interval qe ∈ [1, 10] mm and we fixed the standard deviation
of the phase measurement to σϕ = 0.1 rad. For each value
of the encoder quantization interval, we performed ten Monte
Carlo simulations of the trajectory in Fig. 12. Fig. 13 shows the
average localization errors on the x-coordinate [Fig. 13(a)], the
y-coordinate [Fig. 13(b)], and of the residual cartesian error
[Fig. 13(c)], by applying the dead-reckoning approach (dash-
dotted red line) and the sensor-fusion tracking method (dashed
green line), when varying the encoder quantization interval.
As apparent, the kinematic sensor performance impact on the
sensor-fusion tracking method performance, but the RFID data
usage allows for reducing the localization mostly when the
encoder resolution increases, as expected in real scenarios.
It is noteworthy that the present numerical analysis does
not want to be exhaustive, but aims to show the capacity and
the flexibility of the proposed method when the robot runs
arbitrary trajectories, by considering the effects of the involved
significant parameters.
V. E XPERIMENTAL A NALYSIS
A. Experimental Setup
To validate the feasibility of the proposed tracking method
and its effectiveness, we conducted an experimental analysis
in a laboratory test set. We built a unicycle wheeled mobile
robot with a differential drive kinematics, equipped with two
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commercial rotary encoders on the wheels. A photograph of
the robot can be found in Fig. 14. The robot axle length is
equal to la = 0.528 m. The encoders belong to the Parallax
Arlo Robot kit and operate with 144 pulses for a full tire
revolution and 100 Hz acquisition frequency. The robot tires
have a diameter of 152 mm. The encoder quantization distance
is of around 3.3 mm.
The robot is also equipped with an Impinj Speedway
R420 UHF-RFID reader connected to four UHF-RFID Time-7
Compact Outdoor RAIN RFID antennas with HPBW = 115◦
and Gain = 5 dBiC, and a portable PC employed to collect
and transmit data through a Wi-Fi communication module.
It also carries out a Slamtec RP LIDAR A34 laser range
finder (LRF) employed to provide the ground truth data of the
vehicle trajectory through a state-of-the-art SLAM algorithm.
The robot is also equipped with an IMU platform reserved for
further experiments. The robot payload is powered through
two batteries.
The measurement setup together with the chosen coordinate
reference system is illustrated in Fig. 15. The operating
frequency is set to f0 = 865.7 MHz (ETSI channel #4). Two
EasyRFID Bone reference tags (NT = 2), with Monza R6
chip, are placed at the ceiling at pT1 = [1.00, 0.65, 2.40]T m
and pT2 = [1.00, 1.25, 2.40]T m, respectively. Only the
upward reader antenna is on, by avoiding the time switching
loss among antennas. The robot initial position, namely the
position of the phase center of the upward reader antenna is
p1 = [x 1 , y1 , z 1 ]T = [−0.31, 0.50, 0.68]T m, and the robot
initial orientation is ϑ1 = 0 rad. Thus, the height of the
antenna from the floor is z k = 0.68 m and h = 1.72 m.
The RFID antenna distance with respect to the robot rotation
center, namely the middle point of the segment joining the two
wheels, is  A = [−0.31, 0.00, 0.50]T m. That is, the robot
rotation center is placed at a height of z C = 0.18 m.
B. Experimental Results
Several trajectories were performed during the measurement
campaign, by manually piloting the robot via a remote control.
In the first trial, the robot performed a small “C-shape” path
of length 4 m. The robot average speed was 0.16 m/s, and
N R = 1696 data samples were acquired by the encoders
along the whole trajectory. Fig. 16 shows the measured phase
samples of the signal backscattered by the two tags at the
ceiling. In this scenario, both tags are detected continuously
during the vehicle trajectory.
MOTRONI et al.: SENSOR-FUSION AND TRACKING METHOD FOR INDOOR VEHICLES 8001314

Fig. 13. Average simulated localization errors for the proposed sensor-fusion tracking method versus encoder quantization interval qe by considering
N R = 1696 positions of the “C-shape” trajectory of Fig. 12 for ten different Monte Carlo simulations. (a) Error on the x-coordinate. (b) Error on the
y-coordinate. (c) Residual cartesian error.

Fig. 16. Measured phase samples (normalized to π ) of the reference tags

installed at the ceiling during the experimental analysis.

Fig. 14. UHF-RFID robot employed for the experimental campaign.

Fig. 17. Measured “C-shape” trajectory by the laser range finder and
estimated trajectories by measured data for two tracking methods, when two
reference tags are considered in the scenario.

Fig. 15. Experimental indoor scenario with the UHF-RFID robot and the
two reference tags.
The fluctuation on the curve behavior suggests the presence
of strong multipath components since the antenna has a
considerably wide HPBW. To perform the robot tracking,
the proposed sensor-fusion method was applied, with the fol-
lowing parameters: L th = 2.5 m, L est = 0.3 m, [σx , σ y , σz ] =
[0.1, 0.1, 0] m, N p = 500, α = 5 × 10−4 , η = 0.25.
The particles were randomly initialized around the assumed
vehicle initial position p1 . Fig. 17 shows the estimated tra-
jectory (dashed green line) by applying the proposed sensor-
fusion tracking method to the measured data in Fig. 16. The
trajectory estimated by applying a dead-reckoning approach
(dash-dotted red line) is also shown together with the trajectory
estimated by employing a state-of-the-art SLAM algorithm
with the LRF data (solid black line). It can be noticed that the
RFID-based estimated trajectory is closer to the LRF ground
truth than the trajectory estimated by the dead-reckoning
approach. It is worth noting that the RFID-based estimated
trajectory obtained by processing the measured data is different
with respect to that obtained by processing the simulated
data and illustrated in Fig. 12. Such differences, even if
minimal, can be seen at the first trajectory corner and at
the trajectory end. The similarity of the two abovementioned
estimated trajectories confirms the validity of the simulation
model including the effect of thermal noise and multipath on
the phase samples.
To better visualize the result of Fig. 17, Fig. 18 shows
the localization errors on the vehicle position estimation with
respect to the LRF ground truth of Fig. 17. The proposed
RFID-based tracking method achieves a localization error

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8001314
Fig. 18. Measured localization error with respect to the ground truth related to the estimated vehicle trajectories of Fig. 17. (a) Error on the x-coordinate.
(b) Error on the y-coordinate. (c) Residual cartesian error.
Fig. 19. Histogram of localization errors from all the nine measurement sessions. (a) x-coordinate. (b) y-coordinate. (c) Residual cartesian error.
TABLE I
M EAN VALUE AND S TANDARD D EVIATION OF THE L OCALIZATION E RROR
ON THE x -C OORDINATE , THE y-C OORDINATE AND OF THE R ESIDUAL
C ARTESIAN E RROR OF THE M EASUREMENT R ESULTS
lower than 5 cm, with a residual cartesian error below 4 cm,
by avoiding the typical drift of the dead-reckoning approach,
which appears at the end of the trajectory (Fig. 17). Nine test
cases were carried out with the same setup parameters and
similar trajectories. The histogram of the localization error for
the x-coordinate [Fig. 19(a)], the y-coordinate [Fig. 19(b)],
and the residual cartesian error [Fig. 19(c)] is shown for
48 000 robot positions. The number of test cases showing
a vanishing error is greater for the proposed sensor-fusion
tracking method. Table I shows the corresponding mean value
and the standard deviation of the localization errors.
Such preliminary analysis in a compact laboratory scenario
confirms the method tracking capabilities with a limited num-
ber of reference tags, already shown in the numerical analysis.
VI. C ONCLUSION AND F UTURE W ORKS
A novel sensor-fusion and tracking method for wheeled
vehicles equipped with low-cost kinematic sensors has been
described and validated to target the self-localization of robot
already equipped with RFID hardware for inventory purposes.
The method combines the phase of the signal backscattered by
the UHF-RFID reference tags with odometry data. Thanks to
the relative motion between the robot-mounted RFID antenna
and the set of tags placed at known locations, the proposed
algorithm exploits a synthetic-array approach which guaran-
tees a satisfactory tracking accuracy with a limited number
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 70, 2021
of reference tags. No geometrical constraints are imposed on
the reference-tag locations; indeed, they can be placed on the
floor, at the ceiling or installed on structures placed all around
the scenario provided that at least one tag is detected for each
robot trajectory portion. The method does not require any time-
consuming calibration procedures.
The numerical analysis investigated the tracking capability
by considering a vehicle moving in an indoor scenario with
an arbitrary trajectory. It accounts for the vehicle speed,
the density and configuration of the reference tags, the uncer-
tainty in the RFID phase measurements and in the kinematic
measurements as well. The preliminary experimental results
by employing an RFID robot in a real indoor scenario demon-
strated that satisfactory tracking capabilities can be achieved
by low-density reference tags in a limited area.
The proposed sensor-fusion and tracking method can be
extended to operate with vehicles equipped with multiple
UHF-RFID antennas. Besides, it can be employed with several
moving agents such as robots, walkers, unmanned ground
vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones which move both
in indoor and outdoor scenarios. As a future work, the method
effectiveness will be studied with different vehicles moving at
higher speed in a more complex and wider area, yet requiring
for a low-density deployment of reference tags.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors want to thank AITRONIK s.r.l., Pisa, Italy, for
the realization of the UHF-RFID robot prototype.
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protocol/2-0-1
Andrea Motroni (Member, IEEE) received the B.E.
and M.E. degrees (summa cum laude) in telecommu-
nications engineering from the University of Pisa,
Pisa, Italy, in 2015 and 2017, respectively, where
he is pursuing the Ph.D. degree in information
engineering.
He has coauthored one European patent applica-
tion. His current research interests include indoor
radiolocalization systems, with specific focus on
UHF-RFID phase-based algorithms for robot track-
ing, UHF-RFID smart gates and applications for
Internet of Things and Industry 4.0. In 2019, he has been the President of the
IEEE Student Branch of the University of Pisa.
Alice Buffi (Member, IEEE) received the B.S.
and M.S. degrees (summa cum laude) in telecom-
munications engineering and the Ph.D. degree
(Doctor Europaeus) in “Applied electromagnetism
in electrical and biomedical engineering, electronics,
smart sensors, nanotechnologies” from the Univer-
sity of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, in 2006, 2008, and 2012,
respectively.
In 2011, she was a visiting Ph.D. student with the
Queen Mary University of London, London, U.K.
Since 2012, she has been with the University of
Pisa, where she is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of
Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction Engineering. She has coauthored
several international journal papers and international conferences contributions
and one European patent and one European patent application. Her current
research topics include measurement methods to locate static or moving
items through radio frequency identification (RFID) systems operating at the
ultra-high-frequency (UHF) band in Industry 4.0 scenarios. Besides, she has
interests in classification methods for smart gates and smart storage systems
and aging process in battery cells.
Authorized licensed use limited to: University of Pisa. Downloaded on August 29,2022 at 19:53:05 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 70, 2021
Dr. Buffi is a member of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society
and of the Antennas and Propagation Society. She was a recipient of the Best
Paper Award at the IEEE RFID-TA 2019 International Conference and of
the Young Scientist Award from the International Union of Radio Science,
Commission B, in 2013 and 2016. She serves as an Associate Editor for the
IEEE J OURNAL OF R ADIO F REQUENCY I DENTIFICATION.
Paolo Nepa (Senior Member, IEEE) received the
Laurea (Doctor) degree (summa cum laude) in elec-
tronics engineering from the University of Pisa, Pisa,
Italy, in 1990.
Since 1990, he has been with the Department of
Information Engineering, University of Pisa, where
he is currently a Full Professor. In 1998, he was with
the Electro Science Laboratory (ESL), The Ohio
State University (OSU), Columbus, OH, USA, as a
Visiting Scholar supported by a Grant of the Italian
National Research Council. At the ESL, he was
involved in research on efficient hybrid techniques for the analysis of large
antenna arrays. In the context of UHF-RFID systems, he is working on
techniques for radiolocalization of either tagged objects or readers. He has
coauthored more than 300 international journal articles and conference
contributions. His research interests include the extension of high-frequency
techniques to electromagnetic scattering from material structures and its
application to the development of radio propagation models for indoor and
outdoor scenarios of wireless communication systems. He is also involved
in the design of wideband and multiband antennas, mainly for base stations
and mobile terminals of communication systems, as well as in the design
of antennas optimized for near-field coupling and focusing. He was working
on channel characterization, wearable antenna design, and diversity scheme
implementation, for body-centric communication systems.
Dr. Nepa is a member of the Technical Advisory Board of URSI Com-
mission B—Fields and Waves and served as the General Chair for the IEEE
RFID-TA 2019 International Conference. He was a recipient of the Young
Scientist Award from the International Union of Radio Science, Commission
B, in 1998. Since 2016, he has been serving as an Associate Editor for the
IEEE A NTENNAS AND W IRELESS P ROPAGATION L ETTERS .
Bernardo Tellini (Senior Member, IEEE) was born
in Pisa, Italy, in 1969. He received the M.S. (Laurea)
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
the University of Pisa, Pisa, in 1993 and 1999,
respectively.
Since 2000, he has been with the University
of Pisa, where he is currently a Full Professor of
Electrical Measurements with the Department of
Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction Engi-
neering. His current research interests include char-
acterization of electrical and magnetic properties of
materials, aging process in battery cells, electromagnetic emission associated
with fast electromagnetic transients, sensors and transducers for pulsed power
applications measurement of position, magneto hydrodynamic problems.
Dr. Tellini is a member of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement
Society and of the IEEE Magnetics Society. He is currently the Chair of the
IEEE Italy Section. He was the Chair of European Pulsed Power Laboratories
from 2010 to 2014. He served as the General Chair and the General Co-Chair
for several IEEE Conferences in the field of measurements and other IEEE
technological topics.