The first food to be loaded into the container was canned beans at room temperature.
Contrary to our hypothesis, this test resulted in 41 tags read out of 42, which corresponds to 97.6% readability.
As previously mentioned, radio waves are reflected on metal surfaces.
When tags are attached to metal objects, the main factor that reduces tags' radiation efficiency is that incident electromagnetic waves totally reflect from the metallic surface with a 180° phase reversal.
The reflected wave will cancel the incident wave and reduce the energy available to activate the RFID tags chips
Studies have proven that spacing between the tag and the metal object significantly increases read rates.
Moreover, when a radio wave hits an obstacle smaller than its wavelength (λ(915 MHz) = 0.327 m), scattering occurs and wave patterns are redirected with random phase and amplitude (Blaunstein & Christodoulou, 2007).
RF waves are being reflected and scattered randomly on the cans since they are smaller than 0.327 m in diameter and length.