3-Dimensional Reconstruction on Tagged Packages via RFID Systems

Nowadays, 3D reconstruction has been introduced in monitoring the package placement in logistic industry-related applications. Existing 3D econstruction methods are mainly based on computer vision or sensor-based approaches, which are limited by the line-of-sight or battery life constraint. In this paper, we propose RF-3DScan to perform 3D reconstruction on tagged packages via passive RFID, by attaching multiple reference tags onto the surface of the packages. The basic idea is that by moving the antenna along straight lines within a constrained 2-dimensional space, the antenna obtains the RF-signals of the reference tags attached on the packages. By extracting the phase differences to build the angle profile for each tag, RF-3DScan can compare the angle profiles of the different reference tags and derive their relative positions, then further determine the package orientation and stacking for 3D reconstruction. We implement RF- 3DScan and evaluate its performance in real settings. The experiment results show that the average identification accuracy of the bottom face is about 92.5%, and the average estimation error of the rotation angle is about 4.08º.