SBIR Phase I: A Handheld Fine-Grained Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) Localization System for Retail Automation

SBIR 第一阶段：用于零售自动化的手持式细粒度射频识别 (RFID) 定位系统

• 批准号: 2232748
• 负责人: Isaac Perper
• 金额: $ 27.5万
• 依托单位: CARTESIAN SYSTEMS, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-01 至 2024-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2232748&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Handheld; Fine; Grained

The broader/commercial impacts of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will protect retail stores from loss of merchandise. Brick-and-mortar retail is undergoing an unprecedented transformation, having lost billions of dollars over the past decade due to labor shortages, competition from e-commerce giants, and changing expectations from the modern consumer. To address these issues, retailers have been adopting new digital technologies to gain visibility into their inventory, optimize store operations, and gain customer insights. A key technology that has been adopted by over 90% of US retailers, is Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID). RFID tags are cheap, wireless, and battery-less stickers (similar to barcodes) that have allowed retailers to achieve accurate store-wide inventory, resulting in a significant revenue increase for retailers. In contrast to existing (portable) RFID technology which can only determine whether RFID-tagged items arein the store (i.e., inventory), the proposed technology aims to precisely locate these items throughout the store. The technology leverages billions of off-the-shelf ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID tags that are already attached to clothing, footwear, and apparel items. In contrast to existing mobile solutions which can only detect RFID-tagged items, the team's handheld device leverages sophisticated signal excitation and processing techniques to pin down each RFID’s exact position with decimeter-scale accuracy. This SBIR Phase 1 project will build a system capable of identifying and precisely locating RFID-tagged items and includes three main innovative components: (1) a portable, handheld wireless device for locating RFIDs, (2) a scalable cloud and edge computing platform to process and store the data, and (3) a mobile and web user interface for accessing the data and optimizing picking tasks for retail store associates. Realizing the end-to-end platform requires developing efficient sensor fusion algorithms and low-power, low-cost hardware for accurate, robust, and low-latency localization. This technology necessitates addressing challenges that arise from the computational, memory, bandwidth, and power constraints on the edge device. The platform also requires developing the split and cloud computing architecture to efficiently process data from multiple handheld devices in real-time as well as provide the generalizable application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate this data pipeline with the retail customers. By the end of the Phase I period, the project will have piloted the fully-integrated system in a retail store to evaluate its real-world performance.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）I期项目的更广泛/商业影响将保护零售商店免受商品损失。实体零售正在经历前所未有的转型，由于劳动力短缺，电子商务巨头的竞争以及现代消费者的期望不断变化，在过去十年中损失了数十亿美元。为了解决这些问题，零售商一直在采用新的数字技术来获得库存，优化商店运营并获得客户见解。射频识别（RFID）是美国90％以上的美国零售商采用的一项关键技术。 RFID标签是便宜，无线和无电池贴纸（类似于条形码），这些贴纸使零售商能够获得准确的库存库存，从而使零售商的收入大大增加。与现有的（便携式）RFID技术相反，该技术只能确定RFID标记的项目是否在商店中（即库存）中，拟议的技术旨在精确地在整个商店中找到这些项目。该技术利用已经连接到服装，鞋类和服装产品的数十亿个现成的超高频率（UHF）RFID标签。与只能检测到RFID标记的项目的现有移动解决方案相反，该团队的手持设备利用复杂的信号兴奋和处理技术来固定每个RFID的精确位置，以分解尺度的精度。这个SBIR第1阶段项目将构建一个能够识别和精确定位RFID标记的项目的系统，并包含三个主要创新组件：（1）一种用于定位RFID的便携式，手持无线设备，（2）可扩展的云和边缘计算平台以处理和存储数据，以及（3）用于访问数据和访问数据的数据和Web用户界面，以访问数据和访问数据，以访问数据和访问数据。实现端到端平台需要开发有效的传感器融合算法和低功率，低成本硬件，以进行准确，健壮和低延迟的定位。这项技术需要解决边缘设备上计算，内存，带宽和功率约束的必要挑战。该平台还需要开发拆分和云计算体系结构，以实时从多个手持设备进行有效处理数据，并提供可通用的应用程序编程接口（API），以将此数据管道与零售客户集成在一起。到第一阶段期末，该项目将在零售商店中驾驶已完全集成的系统，以评估其现实世界的绩效。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛影响的评估标准来通过评估而被视为珍贵的支持。