Displacement Estimation Using 3D-Printed RFID Arrays for Structural Health Monitoring

Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are small, low-cost, wearable, and wireless sensors that can detect movement in structures, humans, or robots. In this paper, we use passive RFID tags for structural health monitoring by detecting displacements. We employ a novel process of using 3D printable embedded passive RFID tags within uniform linear arrays together with the multiple signal classification algorithm to estimate the direction of arrival using only the phase of the backscattered signals. We validate our proposed approach via data collected from real-world experiments using a unipolar RFID reader antenna and both narrowband and wideband measurements.