A Flooding Warning System based on RFID Tag

Array for Energy Facility

Chang-He Li Keng-Weng Lao Kam-Weng Tam
Department of Electrical and Computer Department of Electrical and Computer Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering Engineering Engineering
University of Macau University of Macau University of Macau
Macao, China Macao, China Macao, China
mb65414@umac.mo johnnylao@umac.mo kentam@umac.mo

Abstract—Passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) reader and the reading range can be 100 feet or more. The
tags are widely used due to its economic cost and satisfactory passive RFID tag does not have internal power source and it
performance. So far, passive RFID tags are mostly applied to is powered by the electromagnetic energy transmitted from a
identify certain objects, such as underground pipe RFID reader. Due to this reason, the passive tag can only be
identification under buried conditions. However, there is lack read within about 20 feet. No power source requirement is an
of study on the application of buried tags for further advantage of passive tag, it can operate 24/7 without risk of
application. In this paper, the performances of buried RFID power loss. Moreover, the passive tag is very cheap in price
tags are studied to develop a flooding warning system based on while active RFID tag is relatively expensive. These two tags
RFID tag array for energy facility such as power stations. In
both bear advantages and disadvantages. The choice of them
this study, the corresponding signal strength received by the
is dependent on the particular application and the budget.
RFID reader is evaluated when the RFID tags are buried by
seven materials respectively. The results show that flood The RFID systems can operate in either Ultra High
warning detector can be constructed using passive RFID tag Frequency (UHF, 860-960 MHz), High Frequency (HF,
array and reader. 13.56 MHz) or Low Frequency (LF, 125-134 kHz). The tag
detection distance depends on frequency. The higher the
Keywords—Passive RFID tags, RFID, buried, signal strength, frequency, the longer the detection distance will be. The read
RSSI range of low-frequency tag is limited to several inches while
the read range of UHF tag can reach to 50 feet or more.
I. INTRODUCTION
Although RFID tags have also been applied to identify
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a wireless non- underground cables [5], their applications are somehow
contact technology using of radio frequency electromagnetic limited to object identification. There is still lack of study for
fields to transfer data for the purpose of identification. the performance of buried RFID tags. The performance of
Comparing to the barcode, an RFID tag does not require buried RFIDs is obviously different from non-buried ones. In
line-of-sight and it can be read by several readers fact, in our project, we propose to use RFID tags and its
simultaneously. The RFID tag cannot be easily replicated, buried performance to develop a flooding alarm system, such
ripped or smeared, which makes it a secure product. In as the one in [6]. Instead of water level detector, RFID tag
addition, an RFID tag can store huge volumes of data and a array and reader system could be used.
strong encoded identification series can thus be held within it.
The facts proved that RFID tag reduces labor costs and In order to understand more about the performance of
improves efficiency. The demand of RFID tag is so high that RFID tag array when buried, in this paper, seven different
according to "Statista" the global market size of RFID tag common materials are used for burying and blocking the
will be 17.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2018. It is projected to be passive RFID tags. They are air, plastic foam, sand, saw dust,
sized at around 24.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2020 [1]. stone, fresh leaves, and water. A box with adjustable length
but fixed in width and height is set. Under this setting, the
Tracing back the history, the beginnings of radio thickness of material can be changed by adjusting the box
frequency identification technology is the radio-based dimension. The UHF RFID reader is placed in front of the
identification system used by Allied bombers during World box and the reader antenna is facing perpendicularly to the
War II. The development of RFID system started from the box front side. For the RFID tag array, a upvc rod with 4
1970s. In 1973, Mario W. Cardullo filed a patent application RFID tags attached inside the centre of the box (More details
for an active RFID tag with rewritable memory, which is the are shown in Fig. 3). By changing the thickness of material,
first RFID tag in the word. In the middle of 1990's, the first the signal blocking ability of different materials to the buried
Ultra High Frequency (UHF) reader was invented. In 2004, passive RFID tags can be studied. The main performance is
Walmart spent around 50 million USD to develop RFID in evaluated signal strength indication (RSSI), which is used to
its retail system and the income is really considerable [2]. indicate the block strength of the barrier. The paper is
With the rapid development of RFID technology, RFID tag organized as follows. A brief review of passive RFID tags
is more and more widely used. By now, the RFID tag is used and RFID reader is given in Section II. Section III shows the
in many different industries, such as inventory management idea for proposed flooding warning system with RFID tag
[3], supply chain management [4], access control, array. Section IV gives preliminary experimental settings and
underground pipes identification system, laundry system, results of the performance of buried RFID tags. Finally, the
asset tracking, etc. There are two major types of RFID tag, conclusion is summarized in Section V.
one is active RFID tag and the other one is passive RFID tag.
An active RFID tag has a transmitter and a power supply.
The power source makes the tag transmit data to a RFID

978-1-5386-5057-8/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

 II. PASSIVE RFID TAGS AND RFID READER III. PROPOSED FLOODING WARNING SYSTEM BASED
In this section, the basic theory of passive RFID tags and ON RFID ARRAY
RFID reader is reviewed first. A RFID system consists of During hot summer, typhoons often hit Macao. The low-
three major parts: RFID tag, signal reader and reader antenna. lying area could be threatened by flooding. Protection of the
When the RFID system works, the reader transmits radio customer transformer and related power facilities against
waves via its antenna to read the information stored on a tag. flooding is indeed a critical issue for electricity companies.
The tag's antenna gets the energy from the radio waves and is Fig. 2 shows a typical power station environment in Macao
used to power up the internal chip which generates a signal and illustrates the idea of the flooding alarm system.
back to the reader. The server can process the data then store
them into database.
Passive RFID tag consists an Integrated Circuit (IC) and
internal antenna without any internal power source. There are
two main types of passive RFID tag on the market, one is QGBT
RMU
inlay and the other one is hard tag. The inlay is more
common while hard tag is made of plastic, ceramic or rubber
and designed for some unique function or application. The
UHF 860–960 MHz passive RFID tag is used in this
experiment due to its characteristics of waterproof and
preservative coating. RFID passive tag array can make a high TRF

localization accuracy. In general, the more tags in the tag

array, the more localization accuracy. Besides, a larger Flooding Alarm
RFID Reader
distance between the tags also contributes to a higher Detector
localization accuracy [3]. RFID Tags

A RFID reader contains an Radio Frequency (RF) Fig. 2. An illustrative idea of an RFID tag array based flooding alarm
module, which is typically composed by a transmitter, a detector in a power station
receiver, and a microprocessor. A transmitter consists of
three parts: oscillator, modulator and amplifier. An oscillator The power station contains important devices such as
creates a carrier signal firstly then the modulator impinges a ring main unit (RMU), transformer (TRF) and quadro geral
data command on this carrier signal, followed by amplifier de baixa tensão (QGBT). These devices are usually not
amplifies the signal enough so that the RFID tag can get it. A designed to be operated during flooding conditions. Thus
receiver has a demodulator and an amplifier. The returned when flooding occurs, they may cause system breakdown or
data is extracted by the demodulator then the amplifier power failure of the corresponding power area. This can lead
amplifies the signal for processing. A microprocessor plays a to severe economic and development losses. Possible actions
crucial part in data processing. A block diagram of a typical should be taken to avoid disasters. One solution is
RFID system is shown in Fig. 1. The S-8600 4-Port UHF installation of these devices on higher floors. However, this
RFID Reader [7] is applied in this study. It sends a radio solution may only be suitable for new constructed stations,
signal to the tag via the MT-262011/TRH/A/K 902-928 MHz, where novel design is applicable. For devices in old stations,
8.5 dBic RHCP antenna [8]. they still suffer from flooding threats. Another possible
solution is the installation of a flooding alarm system. When
the water level gets up to a certain level, the alarm system
will trigger a signal so that further actions can be taken, such
as raising the gate of the entrance. The system is easier to be
implemented and can also be applied to old stations. It is thus
more feasible to employ the flooding alarm system.
Our proposed RFID tag array based flooding warning
detector include an RFID reader with antenna, and economic
passive RFID tags, as shown in Fig. 2. In the proposed
system, RFID tags are placed on the floor, while a RFID
reader with antenna is placed on top of them to read the
Fig. 1. A block diagram of a typical RFID system signal strength. Under normal conditions (where no water
blocks), the RFID reader is able to read a high signal strength
Based on the discussions above, RFID system is effective for all tags. As flooding occurs, and the RFID tag array is
when the signal reader is able to receive the energy. However, buried by water, the signal strength received reduces or the
under buried condition, the signal energy will be absorbed by tags cannot even be identified by the reader. This difference
the buried material. This is also the main focus of this paper. can be used to develop the flooding alarm detector for the
Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) is a measurement system. In fact, for future Internet of Thing (IoT) application
of the power present in a received radio signal, and is the for power station, it is anticipated that UHF RFID will be
main reference data to compare the blocking characteristics used to provide both sensing and identification of relevant
of different materials in this paper. components of these power facilities. Thus, it is highly
demanded to double said technology for flooding detection
as the welcoming tool for emerging IoT for smart power
system.
IV. PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTAL SETTINGS AND tags can be detected when d>154 cm, while 2 tags can
RESULTS still be detected at d=149 cm).
As introduced, an important idea on the flooding alarm • The sequence with longest detectable distance goes
detector is that the signal strength received by the RFID from air > plastic foam > sand > saw dust > stone >
reader will be changed when the RFID tags are buried or leaves > water.
blocked. Therefore, a study is carried out to investigate the
performance of buried RFID tags by different materials. • The sequence with longest distance d for all 4 tags to
be detected goes from: air > sand > stones > saw dust
A. Experimental Settings > plastic foam > leaves > water.
Fig. 3 show the experimental settings used for the
The results show that with water blocking/burying the
investigation. In order to perform the experiments, a
RFID tags, the reader cannot detect the RFID tags when d is
specially made box with adjustable length, but fixed width
and height is used. Four passive RFID tags are attached to a longer than 33 cm. This supports that flooding detector can
plastic rod, with 6 cm apart. The rod is placed vertically in be constructed using proposed system configuration.
the middle of the box. A RFID reader is placed near the side
of the box, and some filling materials are used to represent 4

the material used to bury the RFID tags. 3

2
1
0
0 50 100 150 200 250

4
3
Distance d (cm) 2
1
0
0 50 100 150 200 250

Number of tags detected

3
2
1
Tag 1
RFID Reader 0
0 50 100 150 200 250
6 cm
Tag 2 Filling 4
3
2
Material Spectrum Range 860 - 960 MHz
1
0
Tag 3 0 50 100 150 200 250
Output Power 0 - 33 dBm
4
Receive Sensitivity < -85 dBm 3

Box Tag 4
Baud Rate 115200 bps / 38400 bps
2
1
0
0 50 100 150 200 250

4
3
2

Fig. 3. Experimental settings used for investigation 1

0
0 50 100 150 200 250

It is further defined that the distance between the 3

2
1
horizontal distance between the RFID reader and the rod 0
0 50 100 150 200 250

(with RFID tags attached) is d cm, in which the value d can Distance (d) cm
be adjusted by varying the length of the box.
Fig. 4. The relationship between the number of detected tags and reading
In the experiment, seven different filling materials are distance d
being investigated. They are namely, air, plastic foam, sand,
saw dust, stone, leaves, and water. The corresponding signal 2) Detected signal strength in each tag vs. distance d
strength is being monitored and the results are presented Next, the detected signal strength of each tag is analyzed
below. against the distance d. Fig. 5 shows the variation the signal
B. Experimental Results and Analysis strength of the four tags with distance d under different
In this section, the experimental results obtained are filling materials. It is interesting that when the RFID tags
presented and analyzed based on different aspects: 1) are buried by material other than air, the received signal
Number of detected tags vs distance d; 2) Detected signal strength of all four tags is similar, although the distance d
strength in each tag vs. distance d; 3) Variation range of the that they can be detected gets smaller. Another interesting
RSSI signal under different filling materials finding is that for sand, the detectable signal strength for
each tag is also higher, even higher than that with air. This
1) Number of detected tags vs. distance d may indicate that some materials can be used to stabilize the
It is found from the experiment that as the distance d RFID signal strength over a certain distance. Moreover, tag
gets larger, less number of tags can be detected by the reader 1 usually shows a higher strength compared to other three
and the phenomenon differs for different materials. Fig. 4 tags. This shows that angle of detection may be another
show the graph of number of detected tags versus distance d. factor affecting buried RFID tag performance. However,
The following phenomena can be observed: this needs further investigation to quantify.
Furthermore, with water as the blocking/burying
• The distance d that at least one tag can be detected is material, the signal strength received is highly reduced, and
the longest with air as the filling material (210 cm). the distance d which RFID tags can be detected are quite
• Water and leaves can easily block RFID energy since short, 33 cm only. The results thus suggests that there is low
no tags can be detected when the distance d is larger possibility for fault alarm since RFID tags can still be read
than 33 cm and 59 cm, respectively. at d=33 cm for other normal material.
• The number of detected tags does not vary linearly
with the distance d (observe an example: for sand no
 V. CONCLUSION
-60
In this paper, an RFID tag array based flooding warning
-80 system is proposed and studied. Severe economic and city
0 50 100 150 200 250
loss can be avoided if an alert can be sent out before serious
-60
flooding occurs. Seven different materials, including water,
-80

0 50 100 150 200 250

are used in this study to investigate the performance of
buried RFID array by evaluating the corresponding RSSI
Signal Strength (RSSI) (dbm)

-60

-80
signal strength recorded by the RFID reader. It is found that
0 50 100 150 200 250 when the RFID array is blocked by materials other than air,
-60 the tags in the array cannot be detected within a shorter
-80 distance. However, for some materials such as sand,
0 50 100 150 200 250
although the tags cannot be detected as long as air does, the
-60
RSSI level is actually higher than that of air within its
-80

0 50 100 150 200 250

detectable distance. This may indicate that some materials
-60
may be able to strengthen the RFID signal. Overall, with
-80
water as the filling material, the tag array cannot be detected
0 50 100 150 200 250 when the distance reaches around 30 cm, while the tags can
-60 still be detected for other materials. This shows that the
-80 RFID tag array can be used to develop the flooding warning
0 50

Tag1
100

Tag2 Tag3
150

Tag4
200 250
system for energy facility.
Distance (d) (cm) ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Fig. 5. The RSSI signal strength of 4 tags with different materials This work has been carried out in Multi-Year Research
Grant project (MYRG2016-00093-FST) with RFID facilities
3) Variation range of the RSSI signal under different support. Thanks all the members in Wireless Communication
filled materials Laboratory of University of Macau for the technical support.
From the experimental results, the signal strength Special thanks to Bi Xiao-Kun and Yanset Pang for the
detected in fact varies within a certain range. Fig. 6 shows helping during the whole experiment period.
the variation range of the RSSI signal when the box is filled
with different materials. The figure shows that although REFERENCES
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Fig. 6. The variation range of RSSI for different materials