Science and Education Publishing American Journal of Systems and Software 2 4 2014 07 22 Factors Affecting RFID System Performance and Non-parametric Analysis 94 100 EN Lidong Wang Department of Engineering Technology, Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, USA Cheryl Ann Alexander AJSS2014243 10.12691/ajss-2-4-3 2014 07 02 2014 07 18 2014 07 22 Many factors can affect radio frequency identification (RFID) system performance. This paper focuses on three selected factors: the RF attenuation, the tagged material, and the tag orientations angle. The effect of the RF attenuation on the response rate of the BlueBean RFID Development Lab System was tested and read ranges at various tag orientations angles were measured. A design of experiments (DOE) method was used to understand and quantify the relative influence of the three factors on the read range of the BlueBean RFID system. There are two main methods of measuring tag performance. The first method uses fixed distance to the tag and finds the minimum transmitted power at which the tag becomes detectable. The second method uses fixed transmitted power while the tag is being moved away until it cannot be read. Both the two experimental methods were used and a comparative study of the two methods was conducted using a non-parametric method based on the U test.