Mounting RFID readers to mobile robots or drones permits them to opportunistically relocate antennas to a virtually infinite number of unique vantage points—including hard-to-reach locations. Robotics researchers are employing mobile readers in unstructured environments (offices, homes and outdoors) to make great strides in robotics, strides which would otherwise be extremely difficult or impossible without the use of long-range RFID tags. Examples include: taking inventory counts and locating tagged assets in homes, in lieu of perfect visual object recognition; fetching and retrieving tagged objects for older adults; and using drones to obtain remote sensor measurements from “sensorized” tags, as well as performing tasks such as soil moisture sensing, remote crop monitoring, water quality monitoring, remote sensor deployment, and infrastructure monitoring of buildings, bridges and dams.
