volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

Maximizing the Radio Frequency Identication (RFID) performance is one of the main challenges in application domains, such as logistics and supply chain management, where the undesired effect of Tag collisions can significantly degrade the speed of the inventory process. The dominating UHF EPC Class-1 Generation-2 (EPC Gen2) protocol only specifies collision avoidance algorithms but makes no provision for collision resolution. In this paper, performance enhancement of the EPC Gen2 standard exploiting Tag collision recovery is demonstrated, for the first time, in real time with measurements. Three simple and effective approaches to handle successful Tag acknowledgments of recovered collided packets are proposed and implemented on a software-defined Reader and programmable Tags. The attained benefits over the conventional EPC Gen2 MAC scheme are significant: the throughput per time slot is increased by 72% while the overall time required to inventory the Tag population is reduced by 26%. The effectiveness of the proposed approach and the validity of the achieved results are confirmed by the good agreement with simulations reported in the literature.

1. Simon, L., P. Saengudomlert, and U. Ketprom, "Speed adjustment algorithm for an RFID reader and conveyor belt system performing dynamic framed slotted aloha," Proceedings of 2008 IEEE International Conference on RFID, April 2008.

2. Singh, J., E. Olsen, K. Vorst, and K. Tripp, "RFID Tag readability issues with palletized loads of consumer goods," Packaging Technology and Science, 2009.

3. Lei, X., et al., "Efficient tag identification in mobile RFID systems," Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM, March 2010.

4. EPCglobal "EPC radio-frequency identify protocols --- Class-1 generation-2 UHF RFID protocol for communications at 860 MHz-960 MHz,", Version 1.2.0, 2008.

5. Roberts, L. G., "Aloha packet system with and without slots and capture," SIGCOMM Computer Communications Review, 1975.

6. Angerer, C., R. Langwieser, and M. Rupp, "RFID reader receivers for physical layer collision recovery," IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. 58, No. 12, 3526-3537, December 2010.
doi:10.1109/TCOMM.2010.101910.100004

7. Mindikoglu, A. F. and A.-J. Van Der Veen, "Separation of overlapping RFID signals by antenna arrays," Proceedings of the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 2737-2740, 2008.

8. Frey, B., "Source separation for UHF RFID,", Master Thesis, Delft and ETH, Mentor Geert Leus, Supervisor Helmut Bolskei, 2008.

9. Zhai, J. and G.-N. Wang, "An anti-collision algorithm using two-functioned estimation for RFID Tags," International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (ICCSA), 702-711, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2005.

10. Nikitin, P. V. and K. V. S. Rao, "Theory and measurement of backscattering from RFID Tags," IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 48, No. 6, 212-218, 2006.
doi:10.1109/MAP.2006.323323

11. Kimionis, J., A. Bletsas, A. G. Dimitriou, and G. N. Karystinos, "Inventory time reduction in Gen2 with single-antenna separation of FM0 RFID signals," Proceedings of 2011 IEEE International Conference on RFID, April 2011.

12. Fyhn, K., R. M. Jacobsen, P. Popovski, A. Scaglione, and T. Larsen, "Multipacket reception of passive UHF RFID Tags: A communication theoretic approach," IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 59, No. 9, 4225-4237, 2011.
doi:10.1109/TSP.2011.2159499

13. Khasgiwale, R. S., R. U. Adyanthaya, and D. W. Engels, "Extracting information from tag collisions," Proceedings of 2009 IEEE International Conference on RFID, April 2009.

14. Sample, A., et al., "Design of an RFID-based battery-free programmable sensing platform," IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, 2608-2615, 2008.
doi:10.1109/TIM.2008.925019

15. Buettner, M. and D. Wetherall, "A software radio-based UHF RFID Reader for PHY/MAC experimentation," Proceedings of 2011 IEEE International Conference on RFID, April 2011.

16. Michael Buettner, Gen2 RFID Reader project page, https://www.cgran.org/wiki/Gen2/..

17. Ettus Research LLC, http://www.ettus.com/products/., .

18. GNU Radio, http://gnuradio.org/., .

19. Catarinucci, L., D. De Donno, M. Guadalaupi, F. Ricciato, and L. Tarricone, "Performance analysis of passive UHF RFID Tags with GNU radio," IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation (APSURSI), 541-544, Spokane, WA, USA, July 2011.

20. Catarinucci, L., D. De Donno, R. Colella, F. Ricciato, and L. Tarricone, "A cost-effective SDR platform for performance charac- terization of RFID Tags," IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, Vol. 61, No. 4, 903-911, April 2012.
doi:10.1109/TIM.2011.2174899

21. De Donno, D., F. Ricciato, L. Catarinucci, A. Coluccia, and L. Tarricone, "Challenge: Towards distributed RFID sensing with software-defined radio," ACM MobiCom, September 2010.

22. De Donno, D., F. Ricciato, L. Catarinucci, A. Coluccia, and L. Tarricone, "Design and applications of a software-defined listener for UHF RFID systems," ACM MobiCom, September 2010.

22. De Donno, D., F. Ricciato, L. Catarinucci, and L. Tarricone, "Design and applications of a software-defined listener for UHF RFID systems," IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest, June 2011.

23. Schoute, F. C., "Dynamic frame length aloha," IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. 31, No. 4, 565-568, 1983.
doi:10.1109/TCOM.1983.1095854

24. "Efficient object identification with passive RFID Tags," PERVASIVE 2002 --- Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), Vol. 2414, 2002.

25. Floerkemeier, C., "Bayesian transmission strategy for framed ALOHA based RFID protocols," Proceedings of 2007 IEEE International Conference on RFID, Grapevine, TX, USA, 2007.

26. Eom, J. B. and T. J. Lee, "Accurate tag estimation for dynamic framed slotted ALOHA in RFID systems," IEEE Communication Letters, Vol. 14, No. 1, 60-62, 2010.
doi:10.1109/LCOMM.2010.01.091378

Dr. Danilo De Donno

Dr. Luciano Tarricone

Dr. Luca Catarinucci

Dr. Vasileios Lakafosis

Prof. Manos M. Tentzeris