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. Thesis Supervisor: Sanjay Sarma Title: Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering