New tag estimator for the dynamic framed slotted Aloha anti-collision algorithm in RFID systems

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is a wireless identification technique that has been used in many fields. This paper investigates the use of this technology for traffic monitoring which is the backbone of any intelligent transportation system. One of the main issues that face this technology is tag collisions. This study examines the performance of two known anti-collisions protocols: the Basic Framed Slotted Aloha (BFSA) and the Dynamic Framed Slotted Aloha (DFSA). For such application, it was found that the DFSA method outperforms the BFSA method. However, the DFSA method requires the use of tag estimator. For this reason, the study compares also the performance of three tag estimators associated with the DFSA: Vogt, Zhen and Schoute. It is observed that the Vogt method is the best if the number of tags is low, while the Schoute approach is superior for higher value. The study proposes a new hybrid tag estimator that combines the strength of the Vogt and Schoute approaches

Energy efficient anti-collision algorithm for the RFID networks

Energy efficiency is crucial for radio frequency identification (RFID) systems as the readers are often battery operated. The main source of the energy wastage is the collision which happens when tags access the communication medium at the same time. Thus, an efficient anti-collision protocol could minimize the energy wastage and prolong the lifetime of the RFID systems. In this regard, EPCGlobal-Class1-Generation2 (EPC-C1G2) protocol is currently being used in the commercial RFID readers to provide fast tag identification through efficient collision arbitration using the Q algorithm. However, this protocol requires a lot of control message overheads for its operation. Thus, a reinforcement learning based anti-collision protocol (RL-DFSA) is proposed to provide better time system efficiency while being energy efficient through the minimization of control message overheads. The proposed RL-DFSA was evaluated through extensive simulations and compared with the variants of EPC-Class 1 Generation 2 algorithms that are currently being used in the commercial readers. The results show conclusively that the proposed RL-DFSA performs identically to the very efficient EPC-C1G2 protocol in terms of time system efficiency but readily outperforms the compared protocol in the number of control message overhead required for the operation

Energy efficient tag identification algorithms for RFID: survey, motivation and new design

RFID is widely applied in massive tag based applications, thus effective anti-collision algorithms to reduce communication overhead are of great importance to RFID in achieving energy and time efficiency. Existing MAC algorithms are primarily focusing on improving system throughput or reducing total identification time. However, with the advancement of embedded systems and mobile applications, the energy consumption aspect is increasingly important and should be considered in the new design. In this article, we start with a comprehensive review and analysis of the state-of-the-art anti-collision algorithms. Based on our existing works, we further discuss a novel design of anti-collision algorithm and show its effectiveness in achieving energy efficiency for the RFID system using EPCglobal C1 Gen2 UHF standard

Ensuring Application Specific Security, Privacy and Performance Goals in RFID Systems

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is an automatic identification technology that uses radio frequency to identify objects. Securing RFID systems and providing privacy in RFID applications has been the focus of much academic work lately. To ensure universal acceptance of RFID technology, security and privacy issued must be addressed into the design of any RFID application. Due to the constraints on memory, power, storage capacity, and amount of logic on RFID devices, traditional public key based strong security mechanisms are unsuitable for them. Usually, low cost general authentication protocols are used to secure RFID systems. However, the generic authentication protocols provide relatively low performance for different types of RFID applications. We identified that each RFID application has unique research challenges and different performance bottlenecks based on the characteristics of the system. One strategy is to devise security protocols such that application specific goals are met and system specific performance requirements are maximized. This dissertation aims to address the problem of devising application specific security protocols for current and next generation RFID systems so that in each application area maximum performance can be achieved and system specific goals are met. In this dissertation, we propose four different authentication techniques for RFID technologies, providing solutions to the following research issues: 1) detecting counterfeit as well as ensuring low response time in large scale RFID systems, 2) preserving privacy and maintaining scalability in RFID based healthcare systems, 3) ensuring security and survivability of Computational RFID (CRFID) networks, and 4) detecting missing WISP tags efficiently to ensure reliability of CRFID based system\u27s decision. The techniques presented in this dissertation achieve good levels of privacy, provide security, scale to large systems, and can be implemented on resource-constrained RFID devices

Stability of synchronous queued RFID networks

Queued Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) networks arise naturally in many applications, where tags are grouped into batches, and each batch must be processed before the next reading job starts. In these cases, the system must be able to handle all incoming jobs, keeping the queue backlogs bounded. This property is called stability. Besides, in RFID networks, it is common that some readers cannot operate at the same time, due to mutual interferences. This fact reduces the maximum traffic that readers can process since they have to share the channel. Synchronous networks share the channel using a TDMA approach. The goal of this work is to analytically determine whether a synchronous queued RFID network attains stable operation under a given incoming traffic. Stability depends on the service rate, which is characterized in this paper using an exact numerical method based on a recursive analytical approach, overcoming the limitations of previous works, which were based on simplifications. We also address different flow optimization problems, such as computing the maximum joint traffic that a network can process stably, selecting the minimal number of readers to process a given total load, or determining the optimal timeslot duration, which are novel in the RFID literature.This work was supported by the Project AIM, (AEI/FEDER, EU) under Grant TEC2016-76465-C2-1-R

Stability of synchronous queued RFID networks

Queued Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) networks arise naturally in many applications, where tags are grouped into batches, and each batch must be processed before the next reading job starts. In these cases, the system must be able to handle all incoming jobs, keeping the queue backlogs bounded. This property is called stability. Besides, in RFID networks, it is common that some readers cannot operate at the same time, due to mutual interferences. This fact reduces the maximum traffic that readers can process since they have to share the channel. Synchronous networks share the channel using a TDMA approach. The goal of this work is to analytically determine whether a synchronous queued RFID network attains stable operation under a given incoming traffic. Stability depends on the service rate, which is characterized in this paper using an exact numerical method based on a recursive analytical approach, overcoming the limitations of previous works, which were based on simplifications. We also address different flow optimization problems, such as computing the maximum joint traffic that a network can process stably, selecting the minimal number of readers to process a given total load, or determining the optimal timeslot duration, which are novel in the RFID literature.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad | Ref. TEC2016-76465-C2-1-

Mobile Tag Reading in a Multi-reader Rfid Environment

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) refers to an emerging technology that intends, but not limited to replace barcode technology. RFID system assures to provide an effective inventorying, tracking and monitoring of any sorts of products in any field of applications. Recently, the large scale deployment of RFID system in supply chain management has necessities the use of multiple readers. Unfortunately, multi-reader RFID system suffers from reader collision problems that severely affect the system performance. Hence, this thesis aims to propose a novel framework for multi-reader RFID system based on Framed Slotted ALOHA protocol. The proposed framework is specific to a scenario in supply chain where a tag affixed to an item is in motion that moves on a conveyor belt and multiple readers which are fixed around the conveyor belt are supposed to read all the items. This work also determines the best pattern for the distribution of the tags on the conveyor belt.Computer Science Departmen