A Wireless Self-Service System for Library Using Commodity RFID Devices

Self-service libraries need self-service book collection and monitoring of book quality to improve user experience This article proposes a privacy-preserving alternative RFbook, a book classification and moisture sensing system formed from an array of passive commercial RFID tags. We have three key observations in designing RFbook for such benefits. The first observation is that when tags are in the vicinity, their interrogation currents can alter each other’s circuit properties, based on which unique phase and amplitude signatures can be obtained from the backscattered signal. The second observation is that books with different thicknesses and sizes of material will have different signal features. Finally, we found that changes in book humidity are reflected in the reader’s received signal strength (RSS). To turn the high-level idea into a practical system, we built a prototype of RFbook and conducted comprehensive experiments to evaluate the system’s performance. The experimental results show that RFbook can distinguish different types of books with an average accuracy rate higher than 96% and monitor the humidity change of the book.