Theia: Radio Frequency Identification Performance Analysis Tool

In recent years there has been an increase in the adoption of Radio FrequencyIdentication or RFID systems for most applications that deal with investment (products/people) tracking. The ideal requirements of investment tracking systems are :-lost-cost, zero maintenance and eciency.Although the applications are similar in nature, the scenarios and operating environmentsare not. This is a problem that plagues an inexpert consumer of RFIDsystems. RFID systems are application specic and hence have to be properly customizedto the application environment. One solution to this problem is to have theinstallation set up by an expert, but this is impractical due to recurring costs for eachtime the system is disturbed. This hinders the spreading of RFID technology. Theother potential solution is to design a methodology that can be used by any RFIDconsumer that allows the user to gauge the eciency of the installation of the RFID system.This thesis focuses on determining the eciency of the RFID system; more specificallyan Ultra High Frequency RFID system. This research deals with the creationof a software that would transform a common UHF RFID reader (Sirit INnity 510)into an RFID performance analysis tool, hence allowing a user to easily and readilydetermine the environmental conditions of the application that pertain to the RFIDsystem installation.Also presented is a metric for identifying the performance of a UHF RFID readerinstallation. This Reader Metric will indicate the generic read capability of a UHFRFID reader for the given reader installation.