Comparative analysis on adaptive features for RFID middleware

Middleware is software that connects between hardware and application layer. Traditional middleware is limited in its ability to support adaptation while adaptive middleware enables modifying its behavior to conform to new situation. RFID applications grow widely and are used in many purposes such as supply chain management and ubiquitous computing enabled by pervasive, low cost sensing and identification. Implementing adaptive characteristic in RFID middleware will increase the capability of adaptation to specific environment such as different reader/tag, different application, and different platform. Adaptive middleware enables modifying the behavior of a distributed application after the application is developed in response to some changes in functional requirements or operating conditions. An extensive study has been carried out, and comparative analysis has been done on identifying the standard features that reflect the functionalities of RFID middleware and adaptive features that represent the non-functionalities of RFID middleware address to overcome the specific problems of application systems. This paper discusses the outcome of this study and adaptive middleware architecture for RFID applications is proposed that supports multi readers and multi applications

An RFID-Based Tracing and Tracking System for the Fresh Vegetables Supply Chain

The paper presents an innovative gapless traceability system able to improve the main business processes of the fresh vegetables supply chain. The performed analysis highlighted some critical aspects in the management of the whole supply chain, from the land to the table of the end consumer, and allowed us to reengineer the most important processes. In particular, the first steps of the supply chain, which include cultivation in greenhouses and manufacturing of packaged vegetables, were analyzed. The re-engineered model was designed by exploiting the potentialities derived from the combined use of innovative Radio Frequency technologies, such as RFID and NFC, and important international standards, such as EPCglobal. The proposed tracing and tracking system allows the end consumer to know the complete history of the purchased product. Furthermore, in order to evaluate the potential benefits of the reengineered processes in a real supply chain, a pilot project was implemented in an Italian food company, which produces ready-to-eat vegetables, known asIV gammaproducts. Finally, some important metrics have been chosen to carry out the analysis of the potential benefits derived from the use of the re-engineered model

Potential of RFID technology in logistics - Case Metso Paper -

Viime vuosina palveluliiketoiminnan merkitys ydinosaamista tukevana prosessina on kasvanut merkittävästi. Metso Paperin ydinosaamista on paperikoneiden valmistus mutta Service liiketoimintaan panostetaan vahvasti ja siltä odotetaan kasvua. Tällä osa-alueella logistiikalla ja etenkin materiaalin tunnistamisella on iso vaikutus prosessien tehokkuuteen. Viivakoodi on yleisesti ollut hallitseva automaattisen tunnistamisen menetelmä mutta sillä on omat rajoituksensa. RFID:llä nämä rajoitukset voidaan voittaa. Standardisoinnin sekä teknisen kehityksen ansiosta se on nopeasti noussut vaihtoehtoiseksi menetelmäksi tehostaa logistiikkaa. Siksi Metso Paper Service on nähnyt RFID tutkimuksen tarpeelliseksi. Tämän Pro Gradu tutkimuksen tarkoitus on selvittää voidaanko RFID:llä tehostaa Metso Paper Servicen nimettyjä prosesseja. Tavoitteena on tunnistaa ne prosessit joissa RFID:llä voitaisiin saavuttaa liiketoiminnallisia parannuksia ja kustannussäästöjä nykyiseen toimintamalliin verrattuna. Tutkimus on toteutettu haastattelemalla avainhenkilöitä teema kysymyksillä 8:sta toimeksiantajan nimeämästä prosessista. Haastattelun ja tilastollisen aineiston perusteella nykyiset toimintamallit ja materiaalin tunnistamiseen liittyvät oleelliset asiat on kuvattu prosessikarttoineen. Lisäksi teoriaosa esittelee RFID tekniikan pääosin tasolla, jonka käyttäjän on hyvä tietää. Tältä pohjalta on analysoitu pystytäänkö RFID:n avulla tehostamaan prosessin toimintaa. Tutkimuksessa havaittiin että useampi prosessi kehittyisi jollakin tavalla RFID:stä mutta toteutettavuus ja saavutettavan hyödyn määrä vaihtelevat. Kuitenkin yksi prosessi muodostui muita selvästi sopivammaksi. Tutkimuksen viimeisessä osassa on selvitetty RFID:n tarkemmat toiminnalliset sekä taloudelliset vaikutukset tähän prosessiin, niin tarkasti kuin se etukäteen on mahdollista. Lopputuloksena päädyttiin suosittelemaan RFID pilottiprojektia suomalaisten asiakkaiden kanssa.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

A Cloud Architecture for Managing IoT-aware Applications According to Knowledge Processing Rules

The Web of Things paradigm has represented a shift in the conjunction of the Internet of Things (IoT) with people, as it allows treating a smart object as a Web resource. While in a first phase the challenge was the physically management of smart objects, the current demand is to help users in profitably introducing IoT in their own daily life.The paper presents a software architecture for IoT systems able to manage the behaviour of involved IoT entities basing on knowledge processing tools. The main goal is informing the user of the occurrence of events of interest semantically determined starting from actual state of the environment. The architecture exploits the potentialities of the Web of Topics (WoX) approach, a conceptual model that simplifies the designing of IoT applications. Leveraging the WoX approach, the architecture introduces an innovative way to mine knowledge from IoT devices aside from any technological background, so that facing the intrinsic heterogeneity affecting IoT entities. The discussed architecture is composed by different modules integrated into an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), strongly decoupled and provided with RESTful-compliant web interfaces to communicate each other and with the external environment, according to a SOA structure. The paper shows how the system is able to receive data coming from sensors and to semantically interpret them by means of a series of business rules that act as knowledge processor

Implementation of Fosstrak EPCIS RFID system

Projecte realitzat en el marc d'un programa de mobilitat amb la Czech Technical University[ANGLÈS] How to adapt a RFID system with Fosstrak open-source software to follow the EPCglobal standards.[CASTELLÀ] Cómo adaptar el software de código libre Fosstrak a un sistema RFID para seguir los estándares de EPCglobal.[CATALÀ] Com adaptar el software de codi obert Fosstrak a un sistema RFID per seguir els estàndards d'EPCglobal

Embedded system for networked real-time RFID reader

Erilaisia tuotantoprosessiin liitettäviä jäljitettävyysketjuja on käytössä useilla eri teollisuudenaloilla. Jäljitettävyydellä pyritään sekä parantamaan tuotantoprosessia että liittämään enemmän prosessitietoa itse lopputuotteeseen. Huomattavista säästömahdollisuuksista huolimatta koko puunjalostusprosessin kattavaa jäljitettävyyttä ei metsäteollisuuteen ole kuitenkaan toteutettu. Tämä diplomityö on toteutettu osana suurta kansainvälistä Indisputable Key -projektia, jossa tähdätään puutavaran jäljitettävyyden parantamiseen ja jäljitettävyystiedon hyödyntämiseen käytännössä. Tässä työssä suunnitellaan ja toteutetaan RFID lukijan sulautettu järjestelmä. RFID-lukija suunnitellaan VTT:llä, ja sitä käytetään metsäkoneen harvesteripäässä osana puutavaran jäljitettävyysketjua. Käyttöympäristö ja -tarkoitus asettavat RFID-lukijalle ja sulautetulle järjestelmälle vaatimuksia sekä kommunikointiin ja käytettyihin rajapintoihin että myös radiotaajuisen elektroniikan hallintaan. Toteutettu sulautettu järjestelmä hoitaa RFID-lukijan kommunikoinnin isäntäjärjestelmän kanssa käyttäen metsäkoneen CAN-väylää. Lisäksi myös sarjamuotoinen kommunikointi toteutetaan lukijan testaamista ja esittelyä varten. Sekä isäntä-lukija-rajapinnassa että ilmarajapinnassa kommunikoinnissa sulautetun järjestelmän ja muun jäljitettävyysketjun välillä hyödynnetään yleisesti laajassa käytössä olevia RFID-standardeja. Lisäksi sulautettu järjestelmä hoitaa RFID-lukijan sisäistä toimintaa ja elektroniikan hallinnan. Työn tuloksena saadaan sulautettu järjestelmä, joka on testaamalla ja mittaamalla todettu sopivaksi käytettäväksi Indisputable Key -projektissa ja metsäkoneessa. RFID-lukijaa, johon sulautettu järjestelmä toteutetaan, hyödynnetään Indisputable Key -projektin laajan mittakaavan testeissä, jotka on suunniteltu suoritettaviksi talvella 2009-2010.Traceability chains are used in multiple industrial fields to gather more knowledge about the manufacturing processes and, also, to link gathered data to the final product. Although, significant savings would be possible also in Forestry, no complete traceability chain yet exists. This thesis is written as a part of a large international Indisputable Key project that aims to improve the traceability in Forestry leading to economical and environmental improvements in the wood processing. In this thesis an embedded system for an RFID reader is designed and implemented. The RFID reader is designed at VTT to be used in a forest harvester head as a part of the wood material traceability chain. Using environment and purpose set requirements for the reader and the embedded software in terms of networking possibilities and used communication interface standards as well as electronics control. The designed embedded system handles the host communication to the rest of the traceability system via the forest harvester CAN network, but, also, additional serial line interface for host communication is implemented and used for testing and demonstration purposes. Embedded system of the reader handles both host and air interface communication through widely used EPCglobal RFID protocols. In addition to the networking and host and tag communication interfaces, the embedded system controls the inner operation of the RFID reader and RF electronics. Harvester head, where the RFID reader is utilized, limits the use of normal RF designs and sets requirements also for the RF electronics control. The result of the thesis is an embedded system that is tested and measured to be suitable for the use in the Indisputable Key and the forest harvester. RFID reader is utilized in the Indisputable Key final demonstrations and large-scale testing that are scheduled to be conducted in Winter 2009-2010

Methodology for Testing RFID Applications

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a promising technology for process automation and beyond that capable of identifying objects without the need for a line-of-sight. However, the trend towards automatic identification of objects also increases the demand for high quality RFID applications. Therefore, research on testing RFID systems and methodical approaches for testing are needed. This thesis presents a novel methodology for the system level test of RFID applications. The approach called ITERA, allows for the automatic generation of tests, defines a semantic model of the RFID system and provides a test environment for RFID applications. The method introduced can be used to gradually transform use cases into a semi-formal test specification. Test cases are then systematically generated, in order to execute them in the test environment. It applies the principle of model based testing from a black-box perspective in combination with a virtual environment for automatic test execution. The presence of RFID tags in an area, monitored by an RFID reader, can be modelled by time-based sets using set-theory and discrete events. Furthermore, the proposed description and semantics can be used to specify RFID systems and their applications, which might also be used for other purposes than testing. The approach uses the Unified Modelling Language to model the characteristics of the system under test. Based on the ITERA meta model test execution paths are extracted directly from activity diagrams and RFID specific test cases are generated. The approach introduced in this thesis allows to reduce the efforts for RFID application testing by systematically generating test cases and the automatic test execution. In combination with meta model and by considering additional parameters, like unreliability factors, it not only satisfies functional testing aspects, but also increases the confidence in the robustness of the tested application. Mixed with the instantly available virtual readers, it has the potential to speed up the development process and decrease the costs - even during the early development phases. ITERA can be used for highly automated testing, reproducible tests and because of the instantly available readers, even before the real environment is deployed. Furthermore, the total control of the RFID environment enables to test applications which might be difficult to test manually. This thesis will explain the motivation and objectives of this new RFID application test methodology. Based on a RFID system analysis it proposes a practical solution on the identified issues. Further, it gives a literature review on testing fundamentals, model based test case generation, the typical components of a RFID system and RFID standards used in industry.Integrative Test-Methodology for RFID Applications (ITERA) - Project: Eurostars!5516 ITERA, FKZ 01QE1105

Extended food supply chain traceability with multiple automatic identification and data collection technologies.

Hu, Yong.Thesis submitted in: October 2007.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-129).Abstracts in English and Chinese.Chapter Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter 1.1. --- Background and Motivation --- p.1Chapter 1.2. --- Objectives of the Thesis --- p.3Chapter 1.3. --- Scope of the Thesis --- p.6Chapter 1.4. --- Structure of the Thesis --- p.6Chapter Chapter 2. --- Review of Related Technologies --- p.8Chapter 2.1. --- Scope and Requirements of the Supply Chain Traceability --- p.9Chapter 2.2. --- Automatic Identification and Data Collection Technologies --- p.14Chapter 2.2.1. --- Introduction to the AIDC Technologies --- p.14Chapter 2.2.1.1. --- The Barcode --- p.14Chapter 2.2.1.2. --- The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) --- p.17Chapter 2.2.1.3. --- The Sensors for Food --- p.19Chapter 2.2.1.4. --- The Global Positioning System (GPS) --- p.23Chapter 2.2.2. --- Frequencies of the RFID Systems --- p.25Chapter 2.2.3. --- Encoding Mechanisms for the RFID Tags and Barcode Labels --- p.30Chapter 2.3. --- Standards and Specifications of the EPCglobal --- p.34Chapter 2.3.1. --- The EPCglobal Architecture Framework --- p.34Chapter 2.3.2. --- The EPCglobal EPCIS Specification --- p.39Chapter 2.3.3. --- The EPCglobal Tag Data Standards --- p.42Chapter 2.4. --- RFID Applications in Food Supply Chain Management --- p.43Chapter 2.5. --- Anti-counterfeit Technologies and Solutions --- p.45Chapter 2.6. --- Data Compression Algorithms --- p.47Chapter 2.7. --- Shelf Life Prediction Models --- p.49Chapter Chapter 3. --- Architecture and Scope of the Application System --- p.54Chapter 3.1. --- Application System Architecture --- p.54Chapter 3.2. --- Application System Scope --- p.55Chapter Chapter 4. --- The Tracking and Tracing Management Module --- p.60Chapter 4.1. --- Overview --- p.60Chapter 4.2. --- AIDC Technologies Adopted for the Traceable Items --- p.62Chapter 4.3. --- Mechanism to Achieve the Nested Visibility --- p.70Chapter 4.4. --- Information Integration in the EPCIS --- p.75Chapter 4.5. --- Anti-counterfeit Mechanism --- p.82Chapter Chapter 5. --- The Storage and Transportation Monitoring Module --- p.90Chapter 5.1. --- Overview --- p.90Chapter 5.2. --- Compression of the Sensor Data --- p.93Chapter 5.3. --- Management of the Sensor Data --- p.95Chapter 5.4. --- Responsive Warning Mechanism --- p.102Chapter Chapter 6. --- The Sensor Networks Enabled Assessment Module --- p.108Chapter 6.1. --- Overview --- p.108Chapter 6.2. --- Management of the Sensor Network Data --- p.110Chapter 6.3. --- Active Warning Mechanism --- p.114Chapter Chapter 7. --- Conclusions --- p.122Chapter 7.1. --- Contributions --- p.122Chapter 7.2. --- Future Work --- p.12

Integrated ZigBee RFID sensor networks for resource tracking and monitoring in logistics management

The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), which includes passive and active systems and is the hottest Auto-ID technology nowadays, and the wireless sensor network (WSN), which is one of the focusing topics on monitoring and control, are two fast-growing technologies that have shown great potential in future logistics management applications. However, an information system for logistics applications is always expected to answer four questions: Who, What, When and Where (4Ws), and neither of the two technologies is able to provide complete information for all of them. WSN aims to provide environment monitoring and control regarded as When and What , while RFID focuses on automatic identification of various objects and provides Who (ID). Most people usually think RFID can provide Where at all the time. But what normal passive RFID does is to tell us where an object was the last time it went through a reader, and normal active RFID only tells whether an object is presenting on site. This could sometimes be insufficient for certain applications that require more accurate location awareness, for which a system with real-time localization (RTLS), which is an extended concept of RFID, will be necessary to answer Where constantly. As WSN and various RFID technologies provide information for different but complementary parts of the 4Ws, a hybrid system that gives a complete answer by combining all of them could be promising in future logistics management applications. Unfortunately, in the last decade those technologies have been emerging and developing independently, with little research been done in how they could be integrated. This thesis aims to develop a framework for the network level architecture design of such hybrid system for on-site resource management applications in logistics centres. The various architectures proposed in this thesis are designed to address different levels of requirements in the hierarchy of needs, from single integration to hybrid system with real-time localization. The contribution of this thesis consists of six parts. Firstly, two new concepts, Reader as a sensor and Tag as a sensor , which lead to RAS and TAS architectures respectively, for single integrations of RFID and WSN in various scenarios with existing systems; Secondly, a integrated ZigBee RFID Sensor Network Architecture for hybrid integration; Thirdly, a connectionless inventory tracking architecture (CITA) and its battery consumption model adding location awareness for inventory tracking in Hybrid ZigBee RFID Sensor Networks; Fourthly, a connectionless stochastic reference beacon architecture (COSBA) adding location awareness for high mobility target tracking in Hybrid ZigBee RFID Sensor Networks; Fifthly, improving connectionless stochastic beacon transmission performance with two proposed beacon transmission models, the Fully Stochastic Reference Beacon (FSRB) model and the Time Slot Based Stochastic Reference Beacon (TSSRB) model; Sixthly, case study of the proposed frameworks in Humanitarian Logistics Centres (HLCs). The research in this thesis is based on ZigBee/IEEE802.15.4, which is currently the most widely used WSN technology. The proposed architectures are demonstrated through hardware implementation and lab tests, as well as mathematic derivation and Matlab simulations for their corresponding performance models. All the tests and simulations of my designs have verified feasibility and features of our designs compared with the traditional systems