I am a student working on my final-year project, entitled RFID-Enhanced Product Prototyping. My goal is to tag each component of a product individually, and then provide the tag’s position data so that a 3D CAD model can be constructed as each component in the prototyping kit is added to form a product. Can this be done?
—Name withheld
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I don’t know much about how CAD systems work, but an RFID tag will not usually provide extremely precise data regarding a tag’s location in 3D space. RFID systems are generally used to indicate a part’s location within a facility—for instance, if it is still in a company’s warehouse. If you need to know precisely where a component is so that parts can be assembled, I do not think an RFID system would work for your purposes.
There are phased-array antenna systems that can ascertain a tag’s position in 3D space, but these are not accurate to, say, 1 millimeter (0.01 inch). If you could post additional details below regarding your precise system requirements, perhaps I can add more information, or our readers might be able to suggest options for you.
—Mark Roberti, Editor, RFID Journal