Scenario:

A large business with a vast inventory was looking for a way to scan products on a large number of shelves on a nightly basis using a robot and an RFID reader. However, the existing apparatus was falling short of this mammoth challenge, since the RFID reader alone required external battery packs, a hotspot, and a small PC with software to accomplish the task. Finally, the solution needs to be done in a professional manner and be highly reliable.

Solution:

Use the RFR-RAIN-4-SMART-ADV Rain IoT Edge reader installed on the robot to accomplish the following:

• Configure, control, and navigate the robot using a Python module running on the RFR-RAIN-4-SMART-ADV.
• Navigate to the location before a scan.
• Set the location of the robot on the RFID reader, and start scanning.
• Perform a sweep command on the robot to increase read accuracy.
• The asset information is stored on the reader, and sent in real-time to the Zone Manager Asset Management software over WIFI.
• Repeat the process for every shelf.
• The scanning result is 99% accurate, thanks to the reader’s ability to scan thousands of tags in a few seconds.

Benefits:

The customer can scan the entire warehouse every night to keep track of the inventory in real-time. Previously, the customer could only perform inventory count once a year. Further , the entire scanning process took a whole month, and cost 100’s of man hours to complete. A large benefit of the solution is that the customer is now able to keep track of inventory on a nightly basis, and use the staff more effectively.

Hardware:

1. Robot from Locus. Any robot would work with no additional requirements.
2. RFR-RAIN-4-SMART-ADV with the following options:
3. Internal batteries lasting over 6 hours.
4. Hotspot capability to allow external devices to connect to the reader directly.
5. WIFI for real-time streaming of the data scanned by the RFR-RAIN-4-SMART-ADV reader.
6. 2 Antennas.
7. 2 Coax Cables.

Note:

The best part about the RFR-RAIN-4-SMART-ADV is that the reader runs using its internal batteries. In addition, the advanced reader comes with pre-installed software to perform all the necessary work of scanning and storing the asset information on the reader and or stream it to the RWS ( RFRain Web Services ) cloud or an on-premise server.

More resources: https://www.rfidjournal.com/events/event/best-new-product-rfrain-smart-reader-and-identivs-eco-friendly-tags

Software:

1. RFR-ROBOT-Manager: Robot controller running on the reader.
2. RFR-ZM: Zone Manager software is pre-installed on the reader.
3. RFR-ZM-MOB: Zone Manager mobile to access and run the reader and robot using a phone or tablet.
4. RFR-ZM-AM: Zone Manager-Asset Manager software running on-premise to store all the asset information in real-time from every reader.

If you want to streamline your business process with an intuitive, customizable, and comprehensive robot and RFID reader, visit our website: www.rfrain.com or comment below.