Enlightened shelf awareness

The use of RFID technology in libraries has increased to the point where it is now the centerpiece of emerging automated self-checkout, return, and theft detection systems. With the external borders of the library secure, focus has shifted to improve the internal state of a library's collection, which is subjected daily to use and abuse by library patrons. In this thesis I present BookBot, a robot equipped with RFID readers, that automates the otherwise manual shelf-reading process and helps librarians keep their database in sync with the library's physical inventory. Experiments on single shelves and entire bookcases confirm that this robot-assisted approach to inventory management can not only detect misplaced books reliably, but accurately determine the order of the books on the shelves and even localize the coordinates of each book to within a few centimeters, enabling both the librarian and the user to reach a state of Enlightened Shelf Awareness.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Ehrenberg, Isaac M

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Sanjay Sarma.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/46649

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/46649