The purpose of the IEEE Council on Radiofrequency Identification (CRFID) James Clerk Maxwell Best Journal Paper Award is to promote and recognize on a yearly basis an outstanding scientific paper published in the IEEE Journal of RFID in the two preceding calendar years.
The award is based on originality, impact, relevance to the CRFID Community, and quality of writing/presentation. It consists of $1,000 per award (split equally among authors) and a certificate for each winning (co)-author of the winning paper.
This award is named after James Clerk Maxwell to honor his pivotal role in the field of electromagnetic propagation, which is the foundation on which Radiofrequency Identification technology is based.
Past winners
The IEEE CRFID James Clerk Maxwell Best Journal Paper Award 2024 goes to:
Nicolas Barbot, Raymundo De Amorim (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble INP, LCIS, Valence, France), and Pavel Nikitin (Impinj, Inc., Seattle, WA 98109 USA)
for the paper
Simple Low Cost Open Source UHF RFID Reader
More info
N. Barbot, R. de Amorim and P. Nikitin, “Simple Low Cost Open Source UHF RFID Reader,” in IEEE Journal of Radio Frequency Identification, vol. 7, pp. 20-26, 2023, doi: 10.1109/JRFID.2022.3227533.Link: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9982299
Recommended Citation
For seminal contributions to the IEEE CRFID community, including the development of a simple and low-cost open-source Software Defined Radio (SDR) UHF-RFID reader.
Paper Contributions
The paper introduces a simple low-cost Software Defined Radio (SDR) RFID UHF reader capable of reading a tag in real time. This reader is made of a simple asynchronous On-Off Keying (OOK) modulator in transmission and an envelope detector in reception. All tasks specific to the RFID protocol including clock recovery, data recovery and frame detection are handled in software by a Arduino Uno micro-controller. The SDR reader is able to generate any RFID command supported by the protocol and to decode any message backscattered by the tag in real time. The details of hardware and software associated with this reader are released in open source for the community
2024 Award Committee:
Prof. Paolo Nepa, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, (IEEE JRFID EiC) – Chair
Prof. Diego Masotti, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy – Member
Prof. Hsi-Tseng Chou, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan – Member
Prof. Jasmin Grosinger, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria – Member
Prof. Shiwen Mao, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA – Member
The IEEE CRFID James Clerk Maxwell Best Journal Paper Award 2023 goes to:
A. Tzitzis, A. Raptopoulos Chatzistefanou, T. V. Yioultsis and A. G. Dimitriou (School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece)
for the paper
A Real-Time Multi-Antenna SAR-Based Method for 3D Localization of RFID Tags by a Moving Robot
More info
A. Tzitzis, A. Raptopoulos Chatzistefanou, T. V. Yioultsis and A. G. Dimitriou, “A Real-Time Multi-Antenna SAR-Based Method for 3D Localization of RFID Tags by a Moving Robot,” in IEEE Journal of Radio Frequency Identification, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 207-221, June 2021, doi: 10.1109/JRFID.2021.3070409.” Link: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9393455
Recommended Citation
For seminal contributions to the IEEE CRFID community, including the development of accurate and effective techniques for the 3D localization of items tagged with UHF-RFID tags.
Paper Contributions
The paper introduces a novel method for 3D localization of UHF RFID tags, when a multi-antenna reader is mounted on a SLAM-enabled robot. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) approach and muti-antenna concepts are combined with the phase-unwrapping of the phase samples backscattered by the target tags, to implement an accurate and fast convergent 3D localization algorithm. Experimental tests have confirmed that the presented method overcomes other state-of-the-art techniques. Exploiting a self-navigating robot as an alternative to using several static antennas, which makes the proposed method an easily scalable solution for applications in real industrial and retail scenarios.
2023 Award Committee:
Prof. Paolo Nepa, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, IEEE Senior Member (JRFID EiC) – Chair
Prof. Alessandra Costanzo, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, IEEE Fellow (CRFID VP Publications) –Member
Prof. Arnaud Vena, University of Montpellier/CNRS, Montpellier, France – Member
Prof. Marcos Rodriguez Pino, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain – Member
Dr. Pavel Nikitin, Impinj Inc, Seattle, USA, IEEE Senior Member – Member