Accelerating RFID Tag Counting for Low-Latency and High-Reliability Applications

Nowadays, Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) systems are extensively used in many applications, such as warehouse management, inventory tracking, sensing or localization. The usage of passive RFID tags allows for low maintenance, thus reducing complexity and cost. However, in scenarios with a large population of tags, the process of discovering tags is time-consuming and may exceed the time requirements of certain applications. Rapidly anticipating the number of tags in advance, namely RFID counting, would help at optimizing the system efficiency. This work proposes an alternative conceptualization of the counting process, embedded within a novel framework that redefines collisions as a usable resource, preserving backward compatibility and contributing to lower the system latency up to 97% with a reliability of minimum 95%, depending on the scenario. Extensive system-level simulations and experimental results demonstrate that our proposed solution successfully detects an entire population of tags within a single round, offering significant advantages for various applications, including a subsequent identification phase.