RFID tags precisely track movements and monitor infrastructure

Video game avatars could be controlled by inexpensive radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags embedded into clothing, claim researchers from Carnegie Mellon University.

The team in Pittsburgh have found ways to track body movements and detect shape changes with passive RFID, an advance with further applications in wearables and condition monitoring.

According to CMU, the unique element of this research can be found in the way tags are tracked, and the way movements and shapes are monitored.

To do this, the CMU researchers showed they could use a single, mobile antenna to monitor an array of tags without any prior calibration.

For body-movement tracking, arrays of RFID tags are positioned on either side of the knee, elbow or other joints. By keeping track of the subtle differences in when the backscattered radio signals from each tag reach the antenna, it’s possible to calculate the angle of bend in a joint.