Locating a misplaced item in a warehouse using Radio Frequency Identification

Warehouses are crowded places that are buzzing with activity all around. Several instruments such as pallet Jacks and forklifts are used repeatedly and items are stacked several stories high. Trucks and trains are constantly loaded and unloaded which in turn makes a warehouse very noisy place. One of the important challenges in a warehouse lies in finding a lost item since there are so many events happening simultaneously. Numerous systems have been proposed to deal with such situations. While the already existing state of the art location detection systems can be used to locate the missing items, it is difficult to use these systems to find the lost item when several similar items are in close proximity. The location detection systems work perfectly well in smaller Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) environments. In case more expensive RFID tags such as active tags are used to determine the location then surrounding noises can dominate the noise coming from active tag.;In this thesis, an RFID system is proposed which can minimize the limitations of other location detection systems and works well in warehouses irrespective of their size. The proposed system will narrow down the search area and will show exactly in what area to look for the lost item and eventually reduce the searching process and time making it more efficient. The proposed solution provides significant improvement to existing location detection mechanisms in finding a misplaced item in a warehouse and will benefit the company's business operations.