Recently, young children’s educational behavior has become a popular topic for researchers seeking to help develop their skills and abilities in a pleasurable manner. Lately, we have seen the emergence of several communicational units that include powerful and advanced technologies, such as mobile devices. In fact, according to a CISCO report, ‘in 2012 the numbers of mobile-connected devices in circulation are greater than the number of people on earth. By 2016 there will be 1.4 mobile devices per capita, and there will be over 10 billion mobile-connected devices, including (M2M) modules, exceeding the world's population at that time (7.3 billion)’ [1]. In this thesis, we introduce a mobile-based edutainment system called ‘Tap and Learn’ that targets young children and aim to assist them in developing their learning abilities and social communication skills. The Tap and Learn system allows children to learn about new objects and entities in their environments by simply tapping over them with a RFID-mounted smart phone which responds by producing a set of multimedia feedback that aims to foster their learning skills in an entertaining manner. The M-learning system does not require y special tools or environments to be operated and required minimal literacy levels. In addition,, the system enable the parents to participate in their children's learning by allowing them to personalize the learning material and the media content of the games so they suit their children's cognitive level and their learning wants.

In the "Internet of Things" (IoT), the things will be able to sense, communicate, and interact. They will also exchange data, information and knowledge, and locate themselves and other things that surround them. In order to be able to interact, the things need to recognize that they are in proximity of other things. It is anticipated that the most widespread components of the IoT will be passive radio frequency identification (RFID) tags because they are inexpensive and provide automatic identification. However, passive RFID tags are not capable of performing complex operations, such as proximity detection and localization, which will be required in future networks. In this thesis, we describe existing problems with current RFID systems and survey potential solutions for localization and proximity detection. Then we present a new RFID device called "Sense-a-Tag" (ST) that can passively detect and decode backscattered signals from tags in its proximity. There have already been an attempt to use this device for tracking. However, detailed analysis of the performance of the ST especially for proximity detection has not been performed yet. We show that when STs are added to a standard RFID system, the problems of proximity detection and localization with RFID tags can readily be solved. Then we applied ST-based system for identifying people and object interactions. The potential uses of ST as an augmented device for IoT applications are discussed in this thesis. Advantages and limitations of an ST based RFID system have been investigated in details for each application. Results obtained from real experiments illustrate that an ST-based RFID system is feasible for proximity detection applications. In addition, a special software is developed in C\# to process the data and run a localization algorithm based on proximity detection information. The same software has been used for tracking people's activity. Different scenarios have been considered in the experiments. We tried to consider majority of factors that might affect the accuracy in the experiments including: angle and distance between the reader/ST and tags, timing in sending queries, presence of human body, etc. The simulations based on real experiments and results illustrates that an ST-based RFID system can be a realistic solution for proximity detection and localization for Location Positioning systems (LPS) and activity monitoring in future IoT.

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is a wireless communications technology which allows companies to secure their assets and increase the portability of information. This research was motivated by the increased commercial use of RFID technology. Existing security protocols with high levels of security have high computation requirements, and less intensive protocols can allow a tag to be tracked. The techniques proposed in this thesis result in the increase of ciphertexts available without a significant increase in processing power or storage requirements. The addition of random inputs to the generation of ciphertexts will increase the number of possible results without requiring a more advanced encryption algorithm or an increased number of stored encryption keys. Four methods of altering the plaintext/ciphertext pair (random block, set pattern, random pattern, and indexed placement) are analyzed to determine the effectiveness of each method. The number of ciphertexts generated, generation time, and generation errors were recorded to determine which of the four proposed methods would be the most beneficial in a RFID system. The comparison of these method characteristics determined that the set pattern placement method provided the best solution. The thesis also discusses how RFID transmissions appear to attackers and explains how the random inputs reduce effectiveness of current system attacks. In addition to improving the anonymity of RFID tag transmissions, the concept of authenticating random inputs is also introduced in this thesis. These methods help prevent an adversary from easily associating a tag with its transmissions, thus increasing the security of the RFID system.

Thesis (M.S. in Electrical Engineering)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2006. / Thesis Advisor(s): Ha, Tri T. ; Su, Weilian. "December 2006." Description based on title screen as viewed on March 12, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-56). Also available in print.

Berlin, Techn. University, Diss., 2006.

Bergische Universiẗat, Bachelorarbeit--Wuppertal, 2006.

Diss. Nr. 3635 Wirtschaftswiss. St. Gallen. / Literaturverz.

Universiẗat, Diss., 2004--Würzburg.

Bachelor-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2004.

Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2007.