RF2ID: A Reliable Middleware Framework for RFID Deployment Nova Ahmed Rajnish Kumar Umakishore Ramachandran College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology

RFID Devices Opportunity Challenges Low cost sensor solution No line of site problem Industry interest in large scale deployment Challenges Error prone in nature Vulnerable to physical environment Large amounts of data

Application Scenario Item Tracking Item Location Physical path for item flow Tagged item Destinations Sources RFID readers Item Tracking Tagged Items are moving Readers are static Ex: Warehouse Distribution , Airport Baggage Claim Scenario Item Location Tagged Items are static Readers are moving Ex: Disaster Scenario A notion of Path in different scenarios

System Architecture A Path based System Virtual Readers (VRs) – Distributed Computational Element Physical RFID Readers (PRs) – Sensor Input Device Path Server and Name Server – Decision Making Elements

Physical Route in a Warehouse System

Architectural Features meeting Design Goals Reliability A virtual reader for a number of physical readers Path using virtual readers Load shedding VRs can drop data Multiple flows Paths are shared

Logical Connectivity of Virtual Readers Data Management Path Management Query Management

Prototype implementation complete Virtual Reader Paths Physical readers and simulated physical readers Tunable parameters to change reader accuracy tag distance tag angular position reader power level VRs Implemented as nodes in a cluster communicating using MPI

Physical Reader Performance (1) Distance Dependency Angular Position Dependency Angular Position: 90 Degree Number of Reader Antenna : 2 Reader Power: 31.5 dB Distance: 15 inches Number of Reader Antenna : 2 Reader Power: 31.5 dB ALR 9800 with 2 antennas from Alien Technologies

Physical Reader Performance (2) Attenuation Dependency Time Dependency Angular Position: 90 Degree Number of Reader Antenna : 2 Number of Tags: 6 Reader to Tag Distance: 15 inches Number of Reader Antenna : 2 Reader Power: 31.5 dB Number of Tags: 6

Improving Reliability using a Single VR Reader1 Reader2 Number of Reader Antenna : 2 Reader to Route Distance: 10 inches Reader Power: 31.5 dB

Improving Reliability using Multiple VRs (path) Reader Total Number of Tags : 10000 Simulation Iteration: 100

Conclusions Experiments showing unreliability of RFID devices A middleware architecture for improving reliability A prototype implementation Performance results showing improvement in reliability

Future Work Implementing the full functionality of the architecture Detailed performance analysis using more physical readers GUI base User Interface for RF2ID deployment

Thanks to RF2ID group members Robert Steven French Echezona Ukah Vladimir Urazov