Introduction

The RFID system that you are designing will most probably be installed in an already existing infrastructure that contains other systems and devices. You need to determine how this RFID system will fit into that existing site infrastructure. For this reason. A site analysis is required before you finalize the RFID system design and before you install the RFID system. To aid you in this task, you can use a blueprint to visualize the site s physical infrastructure. You will need to analyze the site s physical infrastructure and RF environment to find appropriate locations for the interrogation zones or to mark the planned interrogation zones.

The main goal of the site analysis is to ensure that the interrogation zones will function properly, with maximum performance and without interrupting the existing services. Depending on the situation, you could have no freedom in choosing these zones, full freedom in choosing these zones, or somewhere in between these two extremes. Even if you have no freedom in choosing a zone, there could still be a degree of freedom to decide where exactly in the zone you will mount the reader antenna. So, regardless of how much freedom you have to determine the location of interrogation zones, a site analysis will be useful and required.

So, the core question in this chapter is: How can we perform a successful site analysis? In search of an answer, we will explore three avenues: performing physical environmental analysis, performing RF environmental analysis, and documenting and using...