RFID Protocol Design, Optimization, and Security for the Internet of Things
2: Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University, USA
3: Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China
4: School of Computer Science and Technology, Tianjin University, China
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. The tags contain electronically stored information. RFIDs have been widely used in countless applications such as object tracking, 3D positioning, indoor localization, supply chain management, automotive, inventory control, anti-theft, anti-counterfeit, and access control. The Internet of Things (IoT) promises a huge growth in RFID technology and usage. This book covers the topic of RFID protocol design, optimization, and security. RFID systems allow for a much easier and error free inventory management and tracking, but the probabilistic nature of RFID protocols makes the design and optimization complex and challenging. Most existing commercial RFID systems are not well designed. In this book, the authors aim to demystify complicated RFID protocols and explain in depth the principles, techniques, and practices in designing and optimizing them.
Inspec keywords: cryptographic protocols; security of data; data privacy; Internet of Things; radiofrequency identification
Other keywords: RFID queries; RFID estimation; RFID protocol; RFID privacy; RFID detection; RFID identification; Internet of Things security; authentication protocols
Subjects: RFID systems; Computer communications; General and management topics; General electrical engineering topics; Protocols; Data security; Cryptography; Other computer networks
- Book DOI: 10.1049/PBCE112E
- Chapter DOI: 10.1049/PBCE112E
- ISBN: 9781785613326
- e-ISBN: 9781785613333
- Page count: 274
- Format: PDF
-
Front Matter
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
(1)
-
1 RFID identification—design and optimization
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
1
–36
(36)
This chapter addresses the fundamental RFID tag identification problem, namely reading all IDs of a given set of tags, which is needed in almost all RFID systems. Because tags respond over a shared wireless medium, tag identification protocols are also called collision arbitration, tag singulation, or tag anticollision protocols. Tag identification protocols need to be scalable as the number of tags that need to be identified could be as large as tens of thousands with the increasing adoption of RFID tags. An RFID system with a large number of tags may require multiple readers with overlapping regions. In this chapter, we first focus on the single-reader version of the tag identification problem and then extend our solution to the multiple-reader problem.
-
2 RFID identification—fairness
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
37
–60
(24)
The key technical contribution of this chapter is in proposing a fair identification protocol for reading the IDs of all tags in an RFID tag population such that the number of transmissions per tag are equal. The key technical depth of this chapter is in the mathematical development of the theory that FRIP is based upon. The solid theoretical underpinning of FRIP ensures that the actual fairness that it achieves is greater than or equal to the required fairness. We have developed a novel technique that FRIP uses to execute large frame sizes to ensure compliance with the C1G2 standard. We have presented a comprehensive evaluation of FRIP and its side-by-side comparisons with nine major prior tag identification protocols. Our experimental results show that FRIP significantly outperforms all prior identification protocols, even those that are not C1G2 compliant, for not only the fairness but also the metrics such as number of transmissions per tag and power consumption.
-
3 RFID estimation—design and optimization
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
61
–92
(32)
The key technical novelty of this chapter is in proposing the new estimator, the average run size of 1s, for estimating RFID tag population size of arbitrarily large sizes. Using analytical plots, we show that our estimator has much smaller variance compared to other estimators including those used in prior work. It is this smaller variance that makes our scheme faster than the previous ones. The key technical depth of this chapter is in the mathematical development of the estimation theory using this estimator. ART can estimate arbitrarily large tag populations with arbitrarily high accuracy. It works with single as well as multiple readers. Our experimental results show that ART is significantly faster than all prior RFID estimation schemes. We have shown, both theoretically and experimentally, that the estimation time of ART is independent of the tag population size.
-
4 RFID estimation—impact of blocker tags
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
93
–122
(30)
This chapter formally defines a new problem of RFID estimation with the presence of blocker tags and makes the first piece of effort that towards providing an efficient solution. The proposed RFID Estimation scheme with Blocker tags (REB) is compliant with the commodity EPC C1G2 standard, and does not require any modifications to off-the-shelf RFID tags. REB provides an unbiased functional estimator which can guarantee any degree of estimation accuracy specified by the users. Using REB, a retailer can monitor the product stock in a timely manner; meanwhile, the blocker tags are being used to protect the privacy of some important items. Rigorous analysis is given to optimize the parameters of REB to minimize its time cost and energy cost. A trade-off between the time cost and energy cost can be flexibly controlled to satisfy the practical requirements. Extensive simulation results has revealed the advantages of REB over prior schemes in terms of estimation accuracy, time efficiency, and energy efficiency.
-
5 RFID detection—missing tags
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
123
–153
(31)
The key technical contribution of this chapter is in proposing a protocol to detect and identify missing tag events in the presence of unexpected tags. This chapter represents the first effort on addressing this important and practical problem. The key technical depth of this chapter is in the mathematical development of the theory that RUND and RUNI are based upon. The solid theoretical underpinning ensures that the actual reliability of RUND is greater than or equal to the required reliability. We have proposed a technique that our protocol uses to handle large frame sizes to ensure compliance with the C1G2 standard. We have also proposed a method to implicitly estimate the size of the unexpected tag population without requiring an explicit estimation phase. We implemented RUND and RUNI and conducted side-by-side comparisons with four major prior missing tag detection and identification protocols even though none of the existing protocols handle the presence of unexpected tags. Our protocols significantly outperform all prior protocols in terms of actual reliability and detection time.
-
6 RFID detection—unknown tags
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
155
–173
(19)
This study has investigated a practically important problem of unknown tag detection that aims to detect the existence of unknown tags in a time-and energy-efficient way. We have proposed a new SBF which is a general case of the standard BF. Based on the new filtering technique, we have further proposed the SBF-UDP. Sufficient theoretically analysis is presented to minimize the execution time as well as energy consumption of the proposed protocol. We conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the performance of our SBF-UDP, and the experimental results show that our SBF-UDP protocol considerably outperforms the previous related protocols in terms of both time efficiency and energy efficiency.
-
7 RFID queries—single category
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
175
–194
(20)
The key technical contribution of this chapter is in proposing a protocol to search tags in a population of RFID tags. This chapter represents the first effort on addressing this important and practical problem for C1G2 compliant RFID systems. The key technical depth of this chapter is in the mathematical development of the theory that RTSP is based on. The solid theoretical underpinning ensures that RTSP always achieves the required confidence interval. We have proposed a technique to handle large frame sizes to ensure the compliance with the C1G2 standard. We have also proposed a method to implicitly estimate the number of tags in set C. We implemented RTSP and conducted side-by-side comparisons with TH, the fastest prior tag identification protocol. Our experimental results show that RTSP always achieves the required confidence interval and significantly outperforms TH in terms of search time.
-
8 RFID queries—multiple category
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
195
–213
(19)
This chapter studies the problem of TKQs in multicategory RFID systems and makes three key contributions. First, we propose a TKQ protocol. The key idea is to use the combined signals in homogeneous slots to estimate category sizes. TKQ can quickly eliminate the sufficiently small categories, and only a limited number of large-size categories need accurate estimation. Second, we propose the SPH scheme to improve the frame utilization of TKQ from 36.8% to nearly 100%. We theoretically maximize the time efficiency of the proposed protocols. Third, we conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the protocol performance. The simulation results show that TKQ+SPH achieves not only the required accuracy constraints but also a 2.6-7× speedup over prior protocols.
-
9 RFID privacy and authentication protocols
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
215
–233
(19)
RFID is a promising technology that can revolutionize the way we lead our lives. However, before this becomes a reality, certain security issues like consumer privacy protection and fraud prevention and detection must be addressed. This chapter covers only a minimum amount of protocols used within RFID technology to establish the current security that protects this field. Before RFID officially overtakes the use of barcodes, extensive research must continue to ensure an efficient speed and protection of the individual tags. However, it still is believed that not every system using passive RFID tags will encase the same approach, but rather a number of security protocols will become the standard by EPC regulations for each separate RFID system. There is an ample scope in the field of RFID security to improve and innovate in order to allow RFID technology to be incorporated into our daily lives.
-
Back Matter
- + Show details - Hide details
-
p.
(1)