M. Tech. (Department of Process Control and Computer Systems, Faculty of Engineering and Technology), Vaal University of Technology. / Radio Frequency Identification Technology (RFID) technology is increasingly being used in multiple applications due to its low cost and ability to provide a high quality of identification. The cost benefit of RFID system is seen in the reduction in labor required to perform routine tasks such as inventory. With RFID, inventory-related tasks can be done in substantially less time compared to other commonly used auto-identification systems. Recent research has illustrated the application of RFID in multiple application scenarios. RFID can be used for real-time patient identification and monitoring in hospitals, but also for product expiration-date management in retail industries. Some enterprises in South Africa uses a combination of RFID technology and Internet of Things (IoT) to detect misplaced products and to detect low stock levels. Furthermore, RFID is also used for inventory management in libraries as discussed in this dissertation. In this dissertation, a combination of RFID and ZigBee technologies was used to reduce the time spent to perform inventory in libraries. An inventory management system was designed, simulated and built in order to count and locate books inside a library hence improving inventory process time in libraries. The overall results were satisfactory which lead to the achieving of the objectives set in this study.

Thesis (D. Tech. (Electrical Engineering)) - Central University of technology, Free State, 2012 / Radio frequency identification technology (RFID) has emerged as a key technology for automatic identification and promises to revolutionize business processes. While RFID technology adoption is improving rapidly, reliable and widespread deployment of this technology still faces many significant challenges. The key deployment challenges include how to use the simple, unreliable raw data generated by RFID deployments to make business decisions; and how to manage a large number of deployed RFID devices. In this thesis, a multi-agent based RFID middleware which addresses some of the RFID data and device management challenges was developed. The middleware developed abstracts the auto-identification applications from physical RFID device specific details and provides necessary services such as device management, data cleaning, event generation, query capabilities and event persistence. The use of software agent technology offers a more scalable and distributed system architecture for the proposed middleware. As part of a multi-agent system, application-independent domain ontology for RFID devices was developed. This ontology can be used or extended in any application interested with RFID domain ontology. In order to address the event processing tasks within the proposed middleware system, a temporal-based RFID data model which considers both applications’ temporal and spatial granules in the data model itself for efficient event processing was developed. The developed data model extends the conventional Entity-Relationship constructs by adding a time attribute to the model. By maintaining the history of events and state changes, the data model captures the fundamental RFID application logic within the data model. Hence, this new data model supports efficient generation of application level events, updating, querying and analysis of both recent and historical events. As part of the RFID middleware, an adaptive sliding-window based data cleaning scheme for reducing missed readings from RFID data streams (called WSTD) was also developed. The WSTD scheme models the unreliability of the RFID readings by viewing RFID streams as a statistical sample of tags in the physical world, and exploits techniques grounded in sampling theory to drive its cleaning processes. The WSTD scheme is capable of efficiently coping with both environmental variations and tag dynamics by automatically and continuously adapting its cleaning window size, based on observed readings.

This thesis introduces the circuit and system design of interactive Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. IoT has the vision of connectivity for anything, at anytime and anywhere. One of the most important characteristics of IoT is the automatic and massive interaction of real physical world (things and human) with the virtual Internet world.RFID tags integrated with sensors have been considered as one suitable technology for realizing the interaction. However, while it is important to have RFID tags with sensors as the input interaction, it is also important to have RFID tags with displays as the output interaction.Display interfaces vary based on the information and application scenarios. On one side, remote and centralized display interface is more suitable for scenarios such as monitoring and localization. On the other side, tag level display interface is more suitable for scenarios such as object identification and online to offline propagation. For tag level display, though a substantial number of researches have focused on introducing sensing functionalities to low power Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) RFID tags, few works address UHF RFID tags with display interfaces. Power consumption and integration with display of rigid substrate are two main challenges.With the recent emerging of Electronic Paper Display (EPD) technologies, it becomes possible to overcome the two challenges. EPD resembles ordinary ink on paper by characteristics of substrate flexibility, pattern printability and material bi-stability. Average power consumption of display is significantly reduced due to bi-stability, the ability to hold color for certain periods without power supplies. Among different EPD types, Electrochromic (EC) display shows advantage of low driving voltage compatible to chip supply voltage.Therefore this thesis designs a low power UHF RFID tag integrated in 180 nm CMOS process with inkjet-printed EC polyimide display. For applications where refresh rate is ultra-low (such as electronic label in retailing and warehouse), the wireless display tag is passive and supplied by the energy harvested from UHF RF wave. For applications where refresh rate is not ultra-low (such as object identification label in mass customized manufacturing), the wireless display tag is semi-passive and supplied by soft battery. It works at low average power consumption and with out-of-battery alert. For remote and centralized display, the limitations of uplink (from tags to reader) capacity and massive-tag information feedback in IoT scenarios is the main challenge. Compared to conventional UHF RFID backscattering whose data rate is limited within hundreds of kb/s, Ultra-wideband (UWB) transmission have been verified with the performance of Mb/s data rate with several tens of pJ/pulse energy consumption.Therefore, a circuit prototype of UHF/UWB RFID tag replacing UHF backscattering with UWB transmitter is implemented. It also consists of Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and Electrocardiogram (ECG) electrodes for healthcare applications of real-time remote monitoring of multiple patients ECG signals. The ECG electrodes are fabricated on paper substrate by inkjet printing to improve patient comfort. Key contribution of the thesis includes: 1) the power management scheme and circuit design of passive UHF/UWB RFID display tag. The tag sensitivity (the input RF power) is -10.5 dBm for EC display driving, comparable to the performance of conventional passive UHF RFID tags without display functions, and -18.5 dBm for UWB transmission, comparable to the state-of-the-art performance of passive UHF RFID tag. 2) communication flow and circuit design of UHF/UWB RFID tag with ECG sensing. The optimum system throughout is 400 tags/second with 1.5 KHz ECG sampling rate and 10 Mb/s UWB pulse rate. / <p>QC 20151012</p>

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology allows for the scanning of RFID-tagged objects and individuals without line-of-sight requirements. Healthcare organizations use RFID to ensure the health and safety of patients and medical personnel and to uncover inefficiencies in operations. The successful implementation of a system incorporating RFID technologies requires acceptance and use of the technology. Nurses are a group of employees who must use RFID in hospitals throughout the United States. However, due to their being tracked by RFID technology, some of these nurses feel like "big brother" is watching them. This predictive study used a theoretical model that assessed the effect of five independent variables, namely, privacy concerns, attitudes, subjective norms, controllability, and self-efficacy, on a dependent variable, nurses' behavioral intention to use RFID. A total of 106 U.S. registered nurses answered a Web-based questionnaire containing previously validated and adapted questions that were answered through a five-point Likert scale. Two statistical methods, linear regression and multiple linear regression, were used to investigate the survey results. The results of the linear regression analysis showed that privacy concerns, attitudes, subjective norms, and self-efficacy were each a significant predictor of nurses' behavioral intention to use RFID. The results of the multiple linear regression analysis showed that all the constructs together accounted for 60% of the variance in nurses' intention to use RFID. Of the five predictors in the model, attitudes provided the largest unique contribution when the other predictors in the model were held constant. Subject norms also provided a unique contribution. The other predictors in the model (privacy concerns, controllability, and self-efficacy) were not statistically significant and did not provide a significant unique contribution to nurses' behavioral intention to use RFID. The outcomes of this study constitute a significant original contribution to the body of knowledge in the area of information systems by enhancing understanding of the factors affecting RFID acceptance among nurses. The results of this research also provide hospitals and medical centers that require their nurses to use RFID technology with information that they can use to address barriers to their nurses' acceptance and use of RFID technology.

Ubiquitous computing describes the notion that computing devices will be everywhere: clothing, walls and floors of buildings, cars, forests, deserts, etc. Ubiquitous computing is becoming a reality: RFIDs are currently being introduced into the supply chain. Wireless distributed sensor networks (WSN) are already being used to monitor wildlife and to track military targets. Many more applications are being envisioned. For most of these applications some level of security is of utmost importance. Common to WSN and RFIDs are their severely limited power resources, which classify them as ultra-low power devices. Early sensor nodes used simple 8-bit microprocessors to implement basic communication, sensing and computing services. Security was an afterthought. The main power consumer is the RF-transceiver, or radio for short. In the past years specialized hardware for low-data rate and low-power radios has been developed. The new bottleneck are security services which employ computationally intensive cryptographic operations. Customized hardware implementations hold the promise of enabling security for severely power constrained devices. Most research groups are concerned with developing secure wireless communication protocols, others with designing efficient software implementations of cryptographic algorithms. There has not been a comprehensive study on hardware implementations of cryptographic algorithms tailored for ultra-low power applications. The goal of this dissertation is to develop a suite of cryptographic functions for authentication, encryption and integrity that is specifically fashioned to the needs of ultra-low power devices. This dissertation gives an introduction to the specific problems that security engineers face when they try to solve the seemingly contradictory challenge of providing lightweight cryptographic services that can perform on ultra-low power devices and shows an overview of our current work and its future direction.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T17:05:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Renato Pereira de Araujo.pdf: 1711666 bytes, checksum: b5ad19e844d9c137553ad64b03b603c7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-02 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / For the visually impaired, identify which path to follow to reach the desired destination without assistance from healthy people is a challenge. To move in an unknown environment is required to interact with the mechanisms of information. However the visually impaired do not yet have a navigation system in indoor environments with real-time response that allows this this communication. This paper presents a device that allows interaction with the tactile floor to aid navigation and orientation. Through an audio interface, the device provides the visually impaired relevant information on the space around it and the navigation options available. The relevant information is disseminated using labels with radio frequency identification technology, integrated into a microcontroller and an audio playback card. Each label has an electronic product code that allows to identify it uniquely. The label installed in a standard place of tactile floor is linked to an audio file with information about the space and the available routes. The reader integrated development board reads the labels and sends the electronic code to the microcontroller, which in turn identifies the code and assigns this audio file to be played. The device was tested by a volunteer who found all labels positioned on the floor tactile alert, clearly identified its position and reached the desired destination without route errors. Used as a complement to tactile signage, this device provides an interaction between the visually impaired and the existing tactile signage. This project will directly contribute to society, providing a convenient navigation system for people with visual disabilities have greater autonomy / Para os deficientes visuais, identificar qual caminho deve ser seguido para chegar ao destino desejado, sem auxílio de pessoas hígidas, é um desafio. Para se deslocar em um ambiente desconhecido é necessária a interação com os mecanismos de informação. Entretanto os deficientes visuais ainda não contam com um sistema de navegação em ambientes internos com resposta em tempo real que possibilite essa comunicação. Este trabalho apresenta um dispositivo que possibilita a interação com o piso tátil para auxiliar a navegação e a orientação. Por meio de uma interface de áudio, o dispositivo proporciona ao deficiente visual as informações úteis sobre o espaço em seu entorno e as opções de navegação disponíveis. As informações pertinentes são difundidas utilizando etiquetas com tecnologia de identificação por rádio frequência, integradas a um micro controlador e uma placa de reprodução de áudio. Cada etiqueta possui um código de produto eletrônico que permite identificá-la de forma exclusiva. A etiqueta instalada em um local padronizado do piso tátil está atrelada a um arquivo de áudio com informações sobre o espaço e as rotas disponíveis. O leitor integrado a placa de desenvolvimento faz a leitura das etiquetas e envia o código eletrônico ao micro controlador, que por sua vez identifica o código e atribui a este o arquivo de áudio que será reproduzido. O dispositivo foi testado por um voluntário que encontrou todas as etiquetas posicionadas junto ao piso tátil de alerta, identificou claramente sua posição e chegou ao destino desejado sem erros de percurso. Usado como complemento da sinalização tátil, este dispositivo possibilita uma interação entre o deficiente visual e a sinalização tátil existente. Este projeto poderá contribuir diretamente para a sociedade, disponibilizando um sistema de navegação conveniente para que as pessoas com deficiência visual tenham maior autonomia

Interactive packaging is an emerging research area in recent years. It brings people convenient and smart lives, reduces consumption of traditional packaging materials and direct or indirect labor costs as well. Being integrated in interactive packaging, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology becomes one of the most proactive development enablers. In this paper, an interactive and intelligent packaging solution integrating passive RFID system and Controlled Delamination Material (CDM) is given at first. Package opening action is electrically controlled by the RFID system. CDM is primarily used in aerospace applications in the past and the conductor/adhesive joint can be easily opened by applying a little electric power on to the material. Some related works will be shown about the electrochemical characteristics of CDM in order to facilitate the system design. A demonstration system was developed and the test results have proved feasibility of the solution and shown the potential of low cost for mass production. Based on this solution, an interactive medication package for pervasive healthcare is further developed, using EPCglobal Gen2 RFID technology. It will make the medication being accessible for patient only at the prescribed dose and time, and medication taking information will be delivered as well. Such medication package will not only give unprecedented high patient compliance, but also improve the communication between patients and healthcare staffs. / QC 20111202

First, one of the purposes of this thesis is to estimate the complete crosstalk effects including the package and the pads on the surface acoustic wave (SAW) substrate. A new approach based on finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) with equivalent current source method is applied. Two kinds of patterns of one-port SAW resonators with the same package structure and inter-digital transducer (IDT) design are studied. Verification with the measurement results shows that our method is able to obtain good agreement and be used to observe the influence from the SAW pattern. Second, the equivalent current source method is extended to model the excitation of human-body¡¦s electrostatic discharge (ESD) situations. The efficiencies of sacrificial electrodes are also discussed. Finally, a novel sacrificial electrode with fractal to protect SAW devices from ESD break is proposed. Comparing with traditional electrode, the simulation results show that fractal can improve the protective efficiency greatly. Finally, a novel analysis model that can be used to analyze and optimize the impedance of an RFID transponder integrated circuit (IC) which uses backscatter encoding based on simultaneously maintaining the BER of the reader and maximizing the received power of the transponder IC is proposed. The analysis method utilizes mapping from signal constellation of the backscattered signal to the Smith chart to relate the two parameters. Given the system specification and characteristics of the reader and transponder antennas, the optimum impedances of transponder IC for binary communication system can be easily designed by using this model.

The reliability of RFID systems depends on a number of factors including: RF interference, deployment environment, configuration of the readers, and placement of readers and tags. While RFID technology is improving rapidly, a reliable deployment of this technology is still a significant challenge impeding wide-spread adoption. This research investigates system software solutions for achieving a highly reliable deployment that mitigates inherent unreliability in RFID technology. We have considered two different problem domains for large scale RFID deployment. One is item tracking and the other is guidance-monitoring. Item tracking considers applications that have statically placed RFID readers to observe the RFID tagged objects in motion. An airport scenario to observe the tagged baggage or warehouse scenarios to track the tagged goods are examples of item tracking applications. A self guided tour, search and rescue scenario or a visually impaired person looking for direction and guidance in a tagged environment are examples of item location applications. It is observed that there is a notion of path that follows the direction and flow of the mobile items in the item tracking applications and a path gets created along the direction and flow of the mobile object in item location applications. A system level knowledge of the data flow can benefit the system in different aspects such as improved reliability, resource management and real time response. We have designed and implemented an RFID middleware for item tracking: RF²ID (Reliable Framework for Radio Frequency Identification) to organize and support queries over data streams in an efficient manner. We have developed (1) a virtual reader abstraction to improve the potentially error-prone nature of reader generated data (2) a novel path abstraction to capture the logical flow of information among virtual readers. Prototype implementation using both RFID readers and simulated readers using an empirical model of RFID readers show that RF²ID is able to provide high reliability, support path-based object detection and use efficient resource management techniques. We propose a middleware solution that takes into account the data flow information for item location application that requires real time response. The guidance-monitoring scenario considers mobile RFID readers that traverse in a tagged environment. We consider the scenario of an Assisted Living Center for elderly residents as a motivating guidance-monitoring application. The solution for guidance-monitoring system is called GuardianAngel. The application scenario considers a tagged indoor environment with residents having their own RFID readers to provide them with adequate information about the surroundings. The guidance and monitoring requirement can be conflicting. The guidance information requires very fine grain information about the environment to make proper decisions. On the other hand, the monitoring system must not have a fine grain knowledge which can introduce concerns such as privacy concerns. We consider this aspect during the design and implementation. The system is a two layered infrastructure that has the upper layer which is the monitoring layer. This layer is in charge of monitoring of the actors in the environment. The monitoring layer is physically a set of distributed virtual stations that have the knowledge about the environment. The environment itself is equipped with RFID tags. The residents of the environment have the mobile object that has a sensing element and a computing element (e.g., handhold device with a portable RFID reader) - the guidance server runs on this mobile object. The guidance server is in charge of making local decisions to the users. It is resource limited and asks for new information from the virtual stations as needed. The guidance server also provides the monitoring server with the information regarding the status of the mobile object. But the status information is not fine grain information - the guidance server wraps up the information over a period of time and over a larger region to hide the detailed information of the users.The system uses the logical path based abstraction to guide the users. We have implemented the real testbed using grid structured RFID devices along with scalability study using emulated RFID readers. The basic contribution of our work is based on providing novel middleware solution that is able to serve the application taking into account the inherent unreliability of RFID technology. Our path abstraction that uses the physical flow of data as an ally to generate a logical system level flow enhances the performance in many ways.

Until recent developments, labor productivity had been analyzed manually requiring time-consuming work and the possibility of human error. Past research has shown the multitude of benefits obtained from implementing radio frequency identification technology within various construction sites including asset tracking, inventory management, and on-site security upgrades. Additional construction improvements can be identified in terms of productivity analysis of work crews, material transport, and the overall approach to a project to determine whether the construction process is operating at maximum efficiency or can be adjusted to improve its effectiveness. This paper presents the results of implementing radio-frequency identification technology and provides a study of labor productivity analysis for a window replacement project on a high-rise construction site. This extensive study tracks the efficiency of a buck hoist worker and material lift system for transportation and illustrates the applicability of the technology despite the presence of numerous signal impeding obstacles located throughout the site. These issues are resolved with an effective automated location and time tracking system that work in both an indoor and outdoor environment simultaneously with a data recording software and database. The in-house development of the database allows for timely information retrieval of various items of interest in this study and requires less The experimental results show that RFID technology has the capacity to work and produce useful data for labor productivity purposes in an ever-changing construction environment. The research further recognizes relevant information regarding system optimization and worker feedback for future use.