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. 2019 Jul 17;19(14):3148.
doi: 10.3390/s19143148.

Protocol for Streaming Data from an RFID Sensor Network †

Gentza Souto  1 , Florian Muralter  1 , Laura Arjona  1 , Hugo Landaluce  2 , Asier Perallos  1
Affiliations

Protocol for Streaming Data from an RFID Sensor Network †

Gentza Souto et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Currently, there is an increasing interest in the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags which incorporate passive or battery-less sensors. These systems are known as computational RFID (CRFID). Several CRFID tags together with a reader set up an RFID sensor network. The reader powers up the tags' microcontroller and their attached sensor using radio frequency waves, and tags backscatter, not only their EPC code but also the value of those sensors. The current standard for interrogating these CRFID tags is the EPC global Class 1 Generation 2 (EPC C1G2). When several tags are located inside the reader interrogation area, the EPC C1G2 results in very poor performance to obtain sensor data values. To solve this problem, a novel protocol called Sensor Frmed Slotted Aloha (sFSA) for streaming sensor data dealing with the tag collisions is presented. The proposed protocol increases the Sensor Read Rate (SRR), defined as the number of sensor data reads per second, compared to the standard. Additionally, this paper presents a prototype of an RFID sensor network to compare the proposed sFSA with the standard, increasing the SRR by more than five times on average. Additionally, the proposed protocol keeps a constant sensor sampling frequency for a suitable streaming of these tag sensors.

Keywords: EPC C1G2; RFID sensor network; data streaming; wireless sensor network.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Example of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) sensor network [8].
Figure 2
Figure 2
EPC C1G2 definition and slot selection process [8]. (a) Slot definitions for EPC C1G2 Identification Phase; (b) Tag response procedure to Query command.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Example of the procedure followed by the standard protocol for N = 2 and S = 2.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Example of two Read rounds using sensor Frame Slotted Aloha protocol (sFSA) (N=2, S=2).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Comparison of the streaming procedure using the standard EPC C1G2 on top of the figure, and the proposed approach below for N=1 and S=2.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Identification Phase of sFSA using the unique handle procedure.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Flow diagram to differentiate the types of tag responses.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Flow diagram to differentiate the types of tag responses.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Three consecutive Read commands and three Wireless Identification and Sensing Platform (WISP) accelerometer tag responses.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Comparison of SRR for the Framed Slotted Aloha (FSA), the modified FSA and the sFSA protocols for N = 1, 2, 3 tags and S = 5 reads per tag.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Results of the comparison between the modified FSA (modFSA) and the sFSA protocol with varying tags and reads per tag. (a) Comparison of SRR between the modFSA and sFSA with N = 1, 2, 3, 4 tags and S = 2, 5, 10 reads per tag. (b) Variation of the number of reads per tag in the Sense phase with N = 3.
Figure 12
Figure 12
sFSA results on SRR with N = 1, 2, 3, 4 and S = 5. (a) Boxplot of sFSA with N = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and S = 5. (b) Percentage of Identification and Sense Phase of the total time execution with N = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and S = 5.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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