On December 6th 2021, the 3rd RFID Recon Science activity took place in the International Space Station. In this operation, METECS employees tested the advanced RFID homing capabilities that the Recon add-on RFID module gives the Astrobee freeflying robot. (You can read more about the Astrobee robot here: https://www.nasa.gov/astrobee)
How did the activity go? RFID Recon Science 3 was a great success! Three homing attempts with the robot were performed, each better than the last.
The first two attempts were performed with the target RFID tag starting in front of and above the Astrobee Freeflyer robot. We ended within 15 inches of the target tag on both runs, with the second run ending closer than the first.
The third attempt was performed with the target tag starting behind and above the robot. Even though this starting configuration was more challenging than the scenario from the first two attempts, we autonomously homed in on the target so closely that the robot touched the tag!