Inventory of Piled metal tubes using RFID technology

The performance in terms of reading range and read rate of passive RFID tags operating at UHF band is usually measured or calculated by assuming free-space propagation and local plane wave illumination conditions. In this paper, a practical scenario that does not meet the above assumptions has been analyzed. In particular, the RFID signal propagation and tag detection inside a guiding structure has been here considered. Theoretical considerations have been discussed to give practical guidelines for detecting a tagged metal pipe by means of a commercial UHF RFID reader.