TelosRFID: An ad-hoc wireless networking capable multi-protocol RFID reader system

摘要

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is rapidly being adopted as a powerful tool used in object tracking access control, telemedicine and inventory management. Its basic architecture endows reader devices with the capability to wirelessly read stored data off of RFID tags. Because of competing standards, there is no unified air protocol for RFID communication. The proliferation of competing standards, paired with the proprietary nature of commercial readers, can make maintaining and upgrading an RFID infrastructure expensive and time-consuming. Part of the solution that this thesis proposes is an RFID reader which supports custom air protocol implementations. To further reduce the costs associated with the adoption of a new infrastructure, RFID readers would benefit from supporting ad-hoc wireless networking. This feature mitigates the need for an installed infrastructure and facilitates immediate deployment of RFID systems. The development of a multi-protocol RFID reader with ad-hoc wireless capabilities will be a boon for both the commercial and academic sectors. This thesis outlines the design of an ad-hoc wireless networking capable multi-protocol RFID reader system called TelosRFID. The name TelosRFID stems from the systemu27s combination of Crossbow Telos rev. B (TelosB) ZigBee motes with a custom 13.56MHz RFID reader board. The TelosRFID reader board is a custom hardware device that can communicate with 13.56MHz RFID tags. It runs custom firmware in order to control tag communications, manage tag presence monitoring, and relay tag information through the ZigBee network (via its attached TelosB mote.) The system is designed to be demonstratably useful. Its functionality can be visibly confirmed, and configuration errors are easily detected at every component in the system. This framework provides a reliable and established baseline for future enhancements to the systemu27s feature set.