| RFID is a non-contact automatic identification technology, which is developing rapidly both at home and abroad in recent years. It shows great market potential for widely application in different fields. Since its performance can be influenced by some factors such as fabrication process, RFID product must be tested before putting into the market. However, only few instrument manufacturers could develop specialized RFID testing system for the customers till now. Research and development of the RFID testing system is meaningful.The RFID testing system based on virtual instrumentation was constructed in this paper. The system supports ISO18000-3 Mode2 protocol. The PXI-5671 and PXI-5660 is used as RF transmission and receiver module, the PXI-8196 is used as a control module. These PXI modules with the 10 MHz clock establish a high-speed synchronous system and ensure the accuracy of it. Software is divided into three layers. From bottom to top they are the hardware controlling layer, the protocol layer and the measurement layer. The hardware controlling layer controls the equipment. The protocol layer achieves some functions such as command packaging, modulation, encoding, decoding. The measurement layer supports the measuring of physical parameters. Each layer is divided into several software modules. Benefit of the hierarchical and modular design, the entire system has good interoperability and expandability.The system can be used for RFID reader and tag testing. RF transmission module can establish communication to the UUT (unit under test) without any reader. Kinds of modulation, encoding, decoding methods defined in the protocol can be supported by the system. Therefore, any tests from the physical layer to the protocol layer can be realized.The research demonstrates that it is available to construct the RFID testing system by using of virtual instrumentation with integrated hardware and flexible software. |
