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@article{203232,
        author = {Sudarshan Rajendra Chitte and Darshan Dilip Chandel and Chinmay Kalbhor and Dipti Pandit},
        title = {RFID-Based Autonomous Line Following Robot for Smart Warehouse Inventory Management},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {12},
        pages = {10943-10948},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=203232},
        abstract = {Warehouse inventory auditing is an iterative and very important process that has been done manually in the past, consuming considerable manpower and time resources, and still prone to human error. As the size of the warehouse and the amount of inventory grow, manual inventory auditing becomes inefficient and unreliable. This paper describes the design and development of a low-cost autonomous robotic system for warehouse inventory management based on line-following technology and RFID-based product recognition.
The system uses a distributed control approach, where an Arduino controller is responsible for real-time line-following and motor control, and an ESP32 module is used for RFID scanning and wireless data transfer. This allows the system to maintain reliable line-following performance by separating time-critical motor control tasks from communication-intensive tasks. The robot moves along fixed warehouse routes using infrared sensors and stops at points near shelves to scan RFID tags. The scanned unique codes are then wirelessly transmitted over a Wi-Fi hotspot, and the robot automatically continues its line-following operation. Experimental implementation shows the ability to navigate reliably, scan RFID accurately, and transmit data successfully. The system proposed reduces manual labor required during inventory counting and allows continuous scanning with less supervision. The proposed system has been found to reduce the need for manual labor by about 60-70% in a controlled warehouse environment. The system presented provides a viable method for warehouse automation using relatively low-cost embedded hardware and simple navigation algorithms.},
        keywords = {Autonomous mobile robot, warehouse automation, RFID, line-following robot, distributed control, Robotics.},
        month = {May},
        }