DEFINITION Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) exists as a distinct subset of the larger family of automated identification technologies that includes things like bar codes, visual scanning devices and biometric readers. RFID is a means of automated identification that features electronic tags used both to store data and to act as transponders for sending the stored data as the payload in electromagnetic waves (radio waves) sent to detached listening devices (RFID readers) [8] [25]. The tags can be affixed to animate or inanimate objects by a variety of methods and the readers that receive emissions from the tags translate the wave-embedded data into meaningful information (Figure 1). They are a significant improvement over bar codes, for example, in that they do not require any human intervention. Currently deployed RFID systems provide real-time identity tracking and monitoring and make possible a wide variety of access control and inventory management solutions [23] [16] [14]. Beyond this primary value of real-time identification monitoring, the back-end of a typical RFID solution offers a distinct secondary value through storing the rich set of identity data captured by the system, enabling sophisticated data mining techniques to be applied to a number of interesting scenarios [1]. Additionally, while RFID systems primarily deal with automating identity management, they are frequently deployed in combination with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to yield even more powerful solutions that track both identity and spatial location [2] [13].

Radio Frequency Identification

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a recently developed energy-efficient short-range radio communication technology, which is nowa- days vastly becoming more and more popular. The technology aims to provide an energy-efficient low-cost wireless communication mechanism for a wide range of resource-limited consumer electronic devices and applications. In this paper we focus on the networking aspects of the tech- nology. First, we overview fundamentals of BLE communication technology, discuss its capabilities and limitations, and compare BLE with state-of-the-art technologies. Furthermore, we identify and discuss two scenarios, for which standard BLE communication mechanisms show poor performance and propose two mechanisms capable of improving throughput and energy efficiency of BLE communication in multi node environment. The efficiency of the proposed mechanisms is proved via network level simulations, which are executed using the developed BLE simulation tool. The results of the simulations are reported and discussed. We believe that the presented results might be of some interest not only for academic researchers but also for practicing engineers.

Mechanisms for improving throughput and energy efficiency of Bluetooth Low Energy for multi node environment

The world is rapidly developing into a networked society, where people, machines, data, services and applications are tightly integrated by means of information and communications technology. The members of this dynamic machine-human community possess different, and even unique, capabilities. This development requires solutions to support the unprecedented level of the system's pervasion and heterogeneity, solutions which are missing today. Today’s device-level design procedures are an obstacle in the transition to this heterogeneous future, which demands diverse Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including low-end and low-power ones. Reducing the design and production costs of devices in low to mid-scale production quantities, requires new approaches to cope with application versatility. To address this problem, this thesis proposes a novel wireless sensor and actuator network (WSAN)/IoT device design methodology based on the combination of two approaches: platformbased design and autoconfiguration, that are applied to hardware (HW) and software (SW) components. Unlike the state-of-the-art methodologies, the methodology proposed enables more flexibility both during the design and after device deployment, while reducing the development expenses and time-to-market. Although neither of the two these approaches is fundamentally novel on its own, in this thesis they are employed in, and adapted to, extremely resource restricted systems. The feasibility of the methodology is shown by the development of technology artifact representing a Plug-and-Play enabled WSAN/IoT device platform. The new devices are assembled from HW modules, encapsulating the various power supply, processing, transceiver, sensor and actuator units, or sets of those. The central control unit of a device automatically identifies the HW, and configures the SW accordingly. The technology enablers for this the HW and SW architectures and interfaces – are reported in this thesis. Experimentation confirms the viability of the proposed concepts and mechanisms. The utility of the designed solutions has been shown by a series of successful research projects and experimental results.

Plug and play reconfigurable solutions for heterogeneous IoT

In a passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) system, tag collision is generally resolved on a medium access control (MAC) layer. However, some of collided tag signals could be recovered on a physical (PHY) layer and, thus, enhance the identification efficiency of the RFID system. For the recovery on the PHY layer, channel estimation is a critical issue. Good channel estimation will help to recover the collided signals. Existing channel estimates work well for two collided tags. When the number of collided tags is beyond two, however, the existing estimates have more estimation errors. In this paper, we propose a novel channel estimate for the UHF RFID system. It adopts an orthogonal matrix based on the information of preambles which is known for a reader and applies a minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) criterion to estimate channels. From the estimated channel, we could accurately separate the collided signals and recover them. By means of numerical results, we show that the proposed estimate has lower estimation errors and higher separation efficiency than the existing estimates.

Iec Jtc . Subcommittee Sc

Papers

Parameters for active air interface communications at 433 MHz = Paramètres pour les communications actives d'une interface d'air à 433 MHz

Parameters for air interface communications at 860 MHz to 960 MHz = Paramètres pour les communications d'une interface d'air entre 860 MHz et 960 MHz