Testing an RFID receiving gate for improving process accuracy in fashion and apparel retail

This paper presents activities conducted with the aim to design and test an RFID receiving gate for the fashion and apparel retail industry. To ensure high receiving performance, specific lab tests were designed and conducted to identify and set the basic RFID gate design parameters. During the test, we designed and built a specific receiving infrastructure made up of a metal frame and an RFID gate with four antennas and one reader, positioned in the middle of the tunnel itself. The tests were conducted by changing (i) the type of antennas, (ii) shielding / non-shielding with RF absorbing material the exit of the tunnel, and (iii) changing the RFID reading power. The performance of the RFID receiving tunnel are evaluated in terms of (i) number of tag reads, with respect to the total number of expected tags; (ii) number of false reads (e.g. tags read outside the tunnel) and (iii) read count for each tag. The performance analysis allowed us to define the optimal settings for the RFID receiving tunnel, to ensure the maximum value of receiving process accuracy with the minimum reading power, and thus minimum number of false reads.