RFID Reader Management Requirements

Margaret Wasserman

ThingMagic

margaret@thingmagic.com

Overview

• Taxonomy of Readers

• Reader Requirements for:– Configuration– Monitoring – Control

• Ongoing Reader Management Work

Fixed RFID Readers

• “Pizza box” readers with ~2-8 antennas

• Typically used in supply chain applications– Dock doors and conveyor

belts

Fixed Reader Systems

• Wide range of system capabilities– Similar to home gateway or wireless access point

• Processors: – Low-end 16-bit to mid range (~266MHz) 32-bit processor

plus DSP or FPGA for signal processing

• Operating Systems:– Proprietary, embedded, WinCE or Linux

• Networking:– Stand-alone TCP/IP network nodes running DHCP, HTTP,

Telnet (or SSH), NTP, SNMP and proprietary API and/or control protocol

Integrated Reader/Antenna

• Single antenna with integrated reader capability

Reader/Antenna Systems

• Wide range of system capabilities– Very low-end access control point to higher-end “smart

antennas”

• Processors: – DSP only to low-end 16-bit CPU

• Operating Systems:– Proprietary or embedded

• Networking:– Low-end: no standard networking, proprietary control

system perhaps based on RS-232 or USB– High-end: Stand-alone TCP/IP node, might user Power over

Ethernet (PoE), DHCP, proprietary control protocol

Handheld Readers

• Handheld systems with integrated RFID reader and antenna

• Sometimes integrated intoan existing barcodescanner product

Handheld Reader Systems

• Handheld RFID scanner built into a handheld PC• Processors:

– Low-end to mid-range 32-bit processor plus DSP or FPGA for signal processing

• Operating Systems:– Typically WinCE

• Networking:– Wireless TCP/IP network nodes that use DHCP and connect

to servers (perhaps intermittently) using proprietary data transfer applications

Embedded Readers

• “Credit Card-sized” module, used to add RFID to a special-purpose device

• Examples: RFID printer/encoders, packagesorters and POS terminals(AKA cash registers)

Embedded Reader Systems

• Embedded reader is hosted in a special-purpose device

• Processors: – No general purpose CPU -- DSP or FPGA for signal

processing– Host system provides general purpose CPU

• Operating Systems:– None.

• Networking:– None. Accessed via USB, Serial interface or PCMCIA– Host processor may have networking capability

Configuration Requirements

• Networking configuration similar to any end-node infrastructure device– DHCP, configuration and firmware downloads

• Small amount of persistent RFID-specific and device-specific configuration– Power level, active antennas, possibly some

protocol and search settings– Set/get administrative status

RFID Configuration Challenges

• Minimal system requirements– Lower-end “smart antennas” may not have much

processor or memory available

• Needs to be configurable as a stand-alone device or as an entity within another device– Printer, cash register, handheld PC, etc.

• Good fit for an SNMP MIB?– Minimal agent system requirements– Subagent and Entity MIB allow configuration of an

RFID “device within a device”

Monitoring Requirements

• Monitoring of network connectivity similar to any other infrastructure device

• Monitoring of RFID-specific parameters– Operational status– Antenna connection faults– RF problems/interference– Perhaps some thresholding on read counts or

other parameters?

Monitoring Challenges

• RFID market is in early stages, so there hasn’t been much time for de facto standardization– Readers (even within a single category)

have significantly different hardware/software capabilities

Control Requirements

• Most readers do not change roles regularly– Examples of reader roles:

• A reader continuously reads a fixed set of protocols• A reader is set to read a fixed set of protocols, in a fixed cycle

whenever the dock door is open (detected via GPIO)• A reader reads a fixed set of protocols for a defined time period

whenever an electric eye is triggered

• Challenge is not in controlling reader search parameters, it is in collecting, parsing and collating RFID data from multiple read points– A standard way to collect RFID “reads” from multiple readers

would be useful

Control Requirement Questions

• Applications are needed to control the RFID reader, but at what level of abstraction?– Individual read cycle vs. set and forget?

• Where are the applications hosted?– May be hosted on workstation (reached over network), on a

fixed reader, on a handheld PC or on the host processor for an embedded reader

• Are there any “real-time” requirements?– Regulatory requirements demand real-time (sub-millisecond)

control over RF functions– Control at a higher levels may not be real-time at all

Ongoing Related Efforts

• Reader Configuration– De facto standard set of DHCP options with bootfile and

configuration file download mechanisms emerging due to network vendor/system integrator efforts

• Reader Monitoring– EPC Global Reader Management Group

• Defining MIBs for reader monitoring and RFID-specific configuration

• Reader Control– EPC Global Reader Protocol Group

• Defining an XML/Web Services interface for reader control

See: http://www.epcglobalinc.com