Is it possible to make use of Bluetooth to detect RFID tags in the proximity?i'm currently exploring the possibility of using Bluetooth to detect RFID tags within a limited range. The purpose of this is to use the tags and the mobile phone as an anti-loss device. The phone is to periodically scans the area for a particular set of tags. The alarm on the phone will go off when a tag is out of a preset range.
While this (i think) is a damn cool idea, can programs be written to enable bluetooth to even pick up RFID tags in the first place?
can this be programmed? is it possible?
thanks!
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I'm not exactly sure I understand your idea--you need high-power on specific frequencies to trigger passive RFID tags--because your RF has to power them. Many are designed to be readable at under 10 inches because they're expecting the RF source to be nearby. So to 'detect' RFID tags of various and unexpected varieties, you'd have to radiate large amounts of energy on many frequencies and at the same time, listen for responses on many frequencies.
The itty-bitty RF signals (three meter's max?) that comprise blue-tooth communication aren't the right frequencies or forms to trigger RFID tags to respond. You can, however, make a big-noisy 'detector' and if you detect something, you can pass that information on to your host using bluetooth.
So your question is a little like "can you detect TV's with a cellphone." If you've got another method to 'see' the TV (your eyes), you can call someone and say, "yes, I see six TV's" but the signals from the phone can't trigger a response from a TV and really the TV's are only designed to repond to signals from TV towers anyway. The cellphone or the bluetooth are only good for communication.
Also, you can try this test with 'active' RFID tags, that respond using their own power, so they don't have to absorb it first--but they still have to be triggered to respond. This would be a little like finding the TV's because they were already turned on and up-loud. Easier to find, but the cellphone didn't find them, you need another method to find them.
Not directly with Bluetooth, unless you make special directly bluetooth compatible RFID tags, which may not be technically reasonable.
What would be reasonably possible is a Bluetooth RFID reader, which would be an input device for your handheld computer.
Bluetooth is a frequency-hopping radio protocol in the 2.40-2.48GHz band with limited power and sensitivity. RFID is a radio-powered passive and single frequency radio protocol in 3 bands: 30-500kHz (2m range), 850-950MHz (30m+ range) and 2.40-2.50GHz (30m+ range).
While bluetooth operates in the same band as the most expensive RFID devices, the protocols are completely different and designed to co-exist without interference or the ability to interoperate.
If your bluetooth device is software-defined (these days, many are), and if the software is user modifiable (good luck on that one), and if the bluetooth hardware can emit a sufficiently powerful pulse to activate the RFID device (unlikely) and if the bluetooth hardware is sufficiently sensitive to detect the reply from the device (unlikely given the 90dB difference in signal strengths between the activation signal and the sideband response), then maybe, just maybe, it can be done. Even then, the vast majority of RFID devices would be in the wrong frequency band.
I think separate RFID hardware would be a far easier path than cracking a software defined radio.