Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson talks about the best transmitter to use for your TV for Bluetooth earbuds or headphones. Have you ever wished self-checkout was easier than the glitchy scanning of barcodes? A new checkout process using old technology is rolling out to happy shoppers. RFID stands for "radio frequency identification," a technology that uses radio waves to identify and track objects. RFID tags are small electronic devices that can be attached to products, and RFID readers are devices that can scan the tags and communicate with them.

The protection of non-combatants in times of (fully) autonomous warfare raises the question of the timeliness of the international protective emblem. Incidents in the recent past indicate that it is becoming necessary to transfer the protective emblem to other dimensions of transmission and representation. (Fully) Autonomous weapon systems are often launched from a great distance to the aiming point and there may be no possibility for the operators to notice protective emblems at the point of impact. In this case, the weapon system would have to detect such protective emblems and, if necessary, disintegrate autonomously or request an abort via human-in-the-loop. In our paper, we suggest ways in which a cross-frequency protective emblem can be designed. On the one hand, the technical deployment, e.g. in the form of RADAR beacons, is considered, as well as the interpretation by methods of machine learning. With regard to the technical deployment, possibilities are considered to address different sensors and to send signals out as resiliently as possible. When considering different signals, approaches are considered as to how software can recognise the protective emblems under the influence of various boundary conditions and react to them accordingly. In particular, a distinction is made here between the recognition of actively emitted signals and passive protective signals, e.g. the recognition of wounded or surrendering persons via drone-based electro-optical and thermal cameras. Finally, methods of distribution are considered, including encryption and authentication of the received signal, and ethical aspects of possible misuse are examined.

Wireless tags are increasingly used to track and identify common items of interest such as retail goods, food, medicine, clothing, books, documents, keys, equipment, and more. At the same time, there is a need for labelled visual data featuring such items for the purpose of training object detection and recognition models for robots operating in homes, warehouses, stores, libraries, pharmacies, and so on. In this paper, we ask: can we leverage the tracking and identification capabilities of such tags as a basis for a large-scale automatic image annotation system for robotic perception tasks? We present RF-Annotate, a pipeline for autonomous pixel-wise image annotation which enables robots to collect labelled visual data of objects of interest as they encounter them within their environment. Our pipeline uses unmodified commodity RFID readers and RGB-D cameras, and exploits arbitrary small-scale motions afforded by mobile robotic platforms to spatially map RFIDs to corresponding objects in the scene. Our only assumption is that the objects of interest within the environment are pre-tagged with inexpensive battery-free RFIDs costing 3-15 cents each. We demonstrate the efficacy of our pipeline on several RGB-D sequences of tabletop scenes featuring common objects in a variety of indoor environments.

MIT researchers previously demonstrated a robotic arm that combines visual information and radio frequency (RF) signals to find hidden objects that were tagged with RFID tags (which reflect signals sent by an antenna). Building off that work, they have now developed a new system that can efficiently retrieve any object buried in a pile. As long as some items in the pile have RFID tags, the target item does not need to be tagged for the system to recover it. The algorithms behind the system, known as FuseBot, reason about the probable location and orientation of objects under the pile. Then FuseBot finds the most efficient way to remove obstructing objects and extract the target item.

Researchers at MIT have developed a fully-integrated robotic arm that fuses visual data from a camera and radio frequency (RF) information from an antenna to find and retrieve objects, even when they are buried under a pile and fully out of view. A busy commuter is ready to walk out the door, only to realize they've misplaced their keys and must search through piles of stuff to find them. Rapidly sifting through clutter, they wish they could figure out which pile was hiding the keys. Researchers at MIT have created a robotic system that can do just that. The system, RFusion, is a robotic arm with a camera and radio frequency (RF) antenna attached to its gripper.

The idea of finding lost items in this chaotic world has been a constant problem over the years. How frustrating is it for a busy commuter to sift items to find one small object they misplaced? Researchers at MIT unveil a robot that can resolve this issue and prove helpful even in manufacturing and warehouse environments. With RFusion, a robotic arm with a camera and radio frequency(RF) antenna attached to its gripper, one can easily fetch their lost items. The prototype developed by researchers relies entirely on RFID tags.

A busy commuter is ready to walk out the door, only to realize they've misplaced their keys and must search through piles of stuff to find them. Rapidly sifting through clutter, they wish they could figure out which pile was hiding the keys. Researchers at MIT have created a robotic system that can do just that. The system, RFusion, is a robotic arm with a camera and radio frequency (RF) antenna attached to its gripper. It fuses signals from the antenna with visual input from the camera to locate and retrieve an item, even if the item is buried under a pile and completely out of view.

Meeting ever-shifting customer demands is essential for businesses to stay ahead in the competition. For efficient and quick deliveries of products, warehouse management systems should be efficient with zero scope of errors. The proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) is changing the picture of warehouse management at a fast pace. Using IoT devices like RFID tags and sensors enables warehouse managers to keep track of the exact location and progress of the product. Let's explore how IoT enabled warehouses are radically improving the operational efficiency of their supply chain. At Oodles, we provide supply chain software development services to make supply chain operations seamless and eliminate third-party entities.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a new system that will either improve the quality and accuracy of robotics or lead to humanity's inevitable demise at the hands of mechanical overlords. Using RFID tags, the researchers were able to make robots more efficient and accurate when tracking moving objects. The development carries major implications for the future of drones, manufacturing robots and many other applications. The system, which will be presented in a paper at the USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, is surprisingly simple and novel. RFID tags are applied to an object and provides a signal that gives a robot a more precise idea of where its target is.

Retail analytics is a process that helps to provide crucial data for businesses with regards to inventory, sales, supply chain activities, consumer demand, and more. By implementing an analytics-driven retail environment, organizations can make better decisions for procurement, marketing, merchandising, and other operational considerations. This, in turn, enables retailers to create a better buying experience and for identifying opportunities for organizational improvement. What are the benefits and importance of retail analytics? What are some current trends in retail analytics?