Previous studies have found that the Multiple Access Interference (MAI) effect is strongly associated with which sequence pairs are spread over Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Space-Time Spreading (MIMO-STS) systems. An improved method of determining which sequence pairs are to be spread is proposed. The choice of these pairs from the selected spreading code families results in a number of ways to mitigate the MAI effects. A Software Defined Radio (SDR) test bed system has been developed to evaluate the selected spreading sequences, in an attempt to mitigate the MAI effects over 2 × 1 MIMO-STS systems. The SDR test bed results reveal that, for a number of the spreading sequence families, improved transmission properties for asynchronous transmission can be achieved.
The paper proposes an RFID management information system that integrates two common topics including inventory workflow management and warehouse management for bonded warehouse. The main core of this research focused on the boxes and pallets management for the bonded warehouse of Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan. The entire management mechanism covered the semiconductor parts stored in bonded warehouse, inventory management on bonded warehouse and semiconductor parts delivered from bonded warehouse. Based on the cooperation among RFID tags, RFID readers and RFID middleware, the tags information attached on each box and each pallet would be passed to the backend warehouse management information system to achieve the tracing purpose. The result showed that the integrated RFID technology and management with the workflow of bonded warehouse would reduce the time of standardised inventory workflow and improve the efficiency of checking process, and that could also help the bonded inventory to be controlled much more precisely. The enterprises could thus save more labour costs and make the information transmission more transparent between customers and semiconductor companies.
In this paper, an RFID localisation method using a special antenna technique is presented. By using an active RFID system with an external dipole antenna the angle and the distance from the antenna to the RFID tag can be found based on the principle of null steering. The new localisation method has been demonstrated by using UHF RFID technology operated at 868 MHz and 434 MHz. The measurement results shown that, compared with other techniques, this method has a number of advantages such as simple design, easy to implement, low cost and high reliability.
Modern applications frequently require the ability to locate objects in real-world environments. This has motivated the development of a number of competing approaches to object localisation, most of which target specific applications. Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) has emerged as a viable platform for localisation, but due to a number of unresolved challenges with this technology, high levels of performance and wide applicability have remained elusive. In this paper, we outline an RFID-based object localisation framework that addresses these challenges, and propose the use of Received Signal Strength (RSS) to model the behaviour of radio signals decaying over distance in an orientation-agnostic manner to simultaneously locate multiple stationary and mobile objects. The proposed localisation system can operate in a realistically radio-noisy indoor environment, enables design-space trade-offs, is highly extensible, and provides use-case-driven average accuracy as low as 0.15 metres. The proposed localisation system can quickly locate objects with or without the use of reference tags, and illustrates that RSS can be a reliable metric for RFID-based object localisation.
More than five million people are blind in China. Computer game should be attractive to them for leisure time, especially Mahjong. Ontology theory has been adopted to retrieve its knowledge and the low-cost RFID as the mediation between the blind player and computer. We designed an autonomous computer platform called Blind Mahjong Game (BMG), which includes 144 Mahjong tiles and voice prompt function. BMG comprises a plurality of Mahjong cubes (stuck RFID tag) their location in the Mahjong-selection tray or Mahjong-discard tray, a plurality of Chow-Pong-Kong-Win indicator cubes, a win frame, a tile frame, at least one RFID reader connected to BMG by USB port gateway to transmit an RF signal. As compared to current static or drab game for the blind, BMG has been certified by two patents in Taiwan which have shown that its software and hardware integrated novelty, progress and utilisation in the application of RFID technology for the blind.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an information exchange technology based on radio wave communication. It is also a possible solution to indoor localisation. Owing to multipath propagation and anisotropic interference in the indoor environment, theoretical propagation models are generally not sufficient for RFID-based localisation. In fact, the received radio frequency signal distribution may not even be monotonic and this makes range-based localisation algorithms less accurate. On the other hand, range-free localisation algorithms, such as k Nearest-Neighbour (kNN), require reference tags to be spread throughout the whole three-dimensional (3D) space which is frequently not practical. In this work, a hybrid real-time localisation algorithm that combines reference tags with Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) ranging is introduced to improve RFID-based 3D localisation in indoor environments. The localisation algorithm is implemented in MATLAB and is synchronised with radio signal data in real-time. Results show that the proposed hybrid algorithm achieves an average 3D localisation error of 1.08 m which represents a significant improvement over algorithms that use only kNN or RSSI.
Security of stored data within a RFID tag and the data transmission process is important to both the designer and the user. The application of RFID in various domains is increasing owing to its ease of use, flexibility, low cost and enormous advantages of quick accessing and data transfer technology. Those deployments have a risk of unauthorised access to sensitive biometric or financial information through the tag communication. In this paper, programmable cellular automata (PCA) have been used to achieve a multi-step security for an RFID system. The proposed scheme has high level of security, as it provides step by step encryption with different keys and PCA rules for each part. The complexity of the circuit is reduced significantly by reducing the hardware size and power dissipation to a minimum level. The processor for reader and tag frame generator has been developed and implemented using Xilinx ISE14.3 simulation tools and Kintex™-7 FPGA board.
Currently, the indoor localisation based on active RFID technologies is becoming a hot research field in pervasive computing. The LANDMARC approach is the first feasible algorithm using active radio frequency identification (RFID) reference tags with approving results, although it suffers from many drawbacks. The VIRE approach improves it by means of virtual reference tags, but it is not perfect yet. On studying them in detail, an optimised algorithm is proposed in this paper to overcome some shortcomings in LANDMARC and VIRE. In order to achieve the aim, the simulation of the virtual reference tag is improved and a novel error correction model is established in this paper. In addition, the triangular mesh model is employed to deploy the RFID devices for the pursuit of higher localisation accuracy. It is indicated in the simulation experiments that the proposed algorithm is effective and accurate. Compared with the LANDMARC and VIRE, the localisation precision of the proposed algorithm is significantly increased.
Secure ISO/IEC 18000-63 compatible UHF tags have big applications and advantages in present-day logistics or transportation systems. This paper discusses two solutions for secure UHF-RFID tags supporting cryptographical authentication. The first solution is based on a strong Rabin-Montgomery public-key cryptosystem using long integer square operation for the public-key encryption of a tag ID. A second solution is based on an alternative cryptographic technology to provide secure authentication and encryption. It is motivated by the required interference robustness of UHF-RFID tags in the dedicated frequency range and resource limitations as they are often present in embedded security scenarios and RFID devices. We investigate and suggest the implementation of a low hardware complexity cryptosystem for lightweight symmetric key exchange and authentication as well as encryption based on Tree Parity Machine Rekeying Architectures (TPMRAs). First, characteristics of standard-cell ASIC design realisations in 0.18 μ CMOS technology are evaluated and an FPGA-based secure UHF-RFID prototype is presented which demonstrates the feasibility of the suggested public-key cryptosystem.
RFID technologies will increase the capabilities to interact, to react and to customise control systems with innovative possibilities. New control approaches should be proposed based on the use of emerging technologies that will allow their operability in manufacturing systems. A model for ambient control production systems is proposed, based on a set of holonic entities interacting through a set of entities that offer ambient services. After describing the PROSIS (Product, Resource, Order, Simulation Isoarchic System) model, some of the ambient services and the way these services could be provided are presented. PROSIS is based on the holonic paradigm, an isoarchic structure and a multicriteria decision aid method. RFID technologies are used to synchronise the real-world entities (products, resources etc.) and their corresponding entities in the informational world according to the PROSIS model. Then, the impact of the proposed approach in terms of performance evaluation is studied.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been employed in several industrial domains in closed systems, but wide-scale adoption has yet to be achieved. A significant share of RFID deployments is related to access control and payment solutions, although industrial RFID applications (e.g. tracking and product identification) are also gaining ground. At European level, Finnish companies have been at the forefront of RFID adoption. This paper analyses the current state of the Finnish RFID sector, including the business models of RFID providers, the most important customer segments, and the challenges perceived in the providers’ operational environment. Consequently, it should be possible to predict the development of the RFID sector in Europe in the near future.
RFID is being used increasingly in different applications in numerous industries. Many of these applications involve the collection and storing of sensitive data which should be treated accordingly. In the USA, consumer campaigns and the public atmosphere favouring privacy have influenced RFID system design by preventing piloting the solutions which may pose a risk to privacy. However, in Europe the number of RFID applications has increased without significant public attention towards privacy issues. Therefore, the European Commission attempts to highlight the importance of recognising the impacts of RFID applications towards privacy and the need to protect data by launching the Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) framework. In Finland, where RFID use in companies is among the highest in Europe, RFID providers considered their competence in privacy and data protection issues to be quite high and they considered related legislation at least somewhat important to their business. Alternatively, their awareness on the PIA framework was slightly lower.
In passive RFID systems, tag receives energy for communication from the reader, in the absence of on-chip energy source. Hence, a good amount of energy is needed to be transmitted by the transceiver circuit to provide energy to the transponder. Hence, circuit-level energy consumption cannot be ignored in the total energy consumption evaluation of passive RFID systems. Previously, energy consumption evaluation for passive tag anti collision algorithm has been done ignoring circuit-level energy consumption values. This may provide inaccurate results. Here in this paper, an energy consumption evaluation framework for EPC class 1 Gen 2 (passive) based tag anti-collision algorithm has been proposed. This proposed framework includes energy consumed by transceiver and transponder circuits, in total energy consumption estimation for better accuracy.
We propose to apply the efficient, cost-effective, interference-resistant levelled RFID localisation methods to compute the estimated position of a moving entity in real time within an indoor environment. Passive types of RFID tags affixed onto the floor are selected as known reference nodes as their cost and implementation are more efficient. The results of the simulation indicate that the methods are highly accurate in the tracking of the indoor mobile entity.
Data security is a critical issue for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system as it hides important information within it. From both technical and business points of view, it is vital to ensure the security of data for the worldwide use of RFID technology, otherwise hacker or attacker can control the data transmission. So, to secure the RFID tag from ‘hacking’, a data security scheme for RFID tags based on programmable cellular automata has been proposed and implemented in this article. The processor for the system and the secret code generator have been designed in Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL) code using programmable cellular automata (PCA). The processor and ID generator have been simulated in Xilinx ISE 14.3 simulation tools and have implemented the design up to RTL schematic level and the processor has been emulated on the Kintex-7 FPGA board for verification in real environment.
This paper describes a new fast anti-collision algorithm for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems. In this paper, an efficient protocol is introduced for anti-collision of tags and readers in multi-tag multi-reader environment. The proposed anti-collision protocol is based on constructing Similar Binary Trees Topology (STT) for all readers in the collision domain. The novelty of our protocol is the Parallel Binary Splitting (PBS) identification path that will be used in the tag identification process. All readers are synchronised to reply similar information and build similar binary trees topology. The identification time is divided among the tags and the readers. One bit reply will be sent sequentially (one-to-one bit dialog) in the identification process. The tags in the overlapped reader-region will be identified one time only. The integrated treatment of the collision problem provides minimum bit transmission with minimum overhead, higher throughput, and simple logic operation. Performed computer simulations have shown that the proposed collision recovery scheme is very fast and simple.
The door industry needs an automated system that would provide identification and tracking of doors throughout their whole lifetime. With an embedded RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) tag, the door can be quickly identified and traced in all stages of its lifecycle. In this paper, three different passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID tags were chosen to be embedded into wooden doors to test the concept of using passive UHF RFID technology in the door industry. First, the radiation patterns of these tags were measured while embedded into wooden door material. Second, the threshold power and the theoretical read range were measured before and after the tags were tested in various reliability tests: high and low temperature, high humidity, and bending tests. Our results show that all three tags are suitable to be embedded into wooden doors and to be used for identification and tracking during door manufacturing, transportation, and field use.
Item-level RFID-based tracing systems are of growing interest both from industrial and scientific standpoints. In such a context, the choice of the most adequate RFID tag, in terms of shape, frequency, size and reading range, is crucial. The potential presence of items containing materials hostile to the electromagnetic propagation exacerbates the problem. In addition, the peculiarities of the different RFID-based checkpoints make the requirements for the tag even more stringent. In this work, the performance of several commercial UHF RFID tags in each step of the pharmaceutical supply chain has been evaluated, confirming the foreseen criticality. On such basis, a guideline for the electromagnetic design of new high-performance tags capable of overcoming such criticalities has been defined. Finally, driven by such guidelines, a new enhanced tag has been designed, realised and tested, demonstrating that high performance item-level tracing systems can actually be implemented also in critical operating conditions.
