Indoor positioning system simulation for a robot using radio frequency identification

摘要

Robotic automation is considered as the fourth industrial revolution by multiple industrialists. Robots are faster, more accurate, less error-prone and cost-effective when compared to human beings. For big companies, it is estimated that by 2025, labor cost savings from the adoption of advanced industrial robots would surpass 20%. However, for small and medium companies, industrial robots are still expensive and unaffordable. Fortunately, with the advent of Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, open source hardware and software, and the declining price of electronic components, a new generation of smaller, cheaper and friendlier robots are emerging, for small and medium businesses. In this paper, we propose the simulation of an Indoor Positioning System (IPS) robot, which performs a forklift operation in a warehouse. The system uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, and Java programming language for exchanging data from a server. An ESP8266 NodeMCU module, an Arduino microcontroller and various components such as MFRC522 to read RFID tags, Ultrasonic Sensors HC-SR04 for detecting obstacles are used. This resulted in a very low cost, reliable and multifunctional system. Simulations have demonstrated that the mobile robot can transmit packets over the network to a local server for mapping without losses. Moreover, it can receive packets from the server to obtain destination points and mapping obstacles while moving around the RFID tagged floor.