The Design And Implementation Of RFID Reader Communication Performance Test Platform

RFID technology is a complex application technology, which is a multidisciplinary integration of emerging technology. It not only covers the microwave technology and the electromagnetic theory, but also covers communication principle and semiconductor integrated circuit technology. At present, RFID technology has become a new economic growth point, and it spreads over the world. The research and development of RFID technology has enormous economic and social significance. China's application of RFID technology is still in its initial stage, the market prospects are very broad. Large-scale application of RFID technology in China can not be separated from test validation. As a basic way for people to know and change the world, the foundation position of test technology is strengthened continuously, and it becomes a reflection of one country's level of productivity. To improve the efficiency of testing and the accuracy of the test results, and to eliminate the impact of human error, therefore requires researching and developing an advanced test environment to provide test verification platform for the application of RFID, which will provide technical support for the verifying and building of national standards.Basing on the virtual instruments technology and according to the test standard, this paper design an automatic test platform (RFID reader communication performance test platform) which can complete the test process and test report of the device under test automatically. A multiple subsystem design method is applied in this automatic test platform. Different devices are divided into different kinds according to the feature of the devices under test. And different subsystems are designed according to different types of the devices, while every subsystem is developed in the similar style to make it a whole.The test platform consists of automatic test software, industrial PC (IPC), GPIB controller, test environment, and testing instruments. Test engineer use automatic test software installed in IPC to control the instrument for testing, and completing data acquisition, processing and displaying test results, and finally generating the test reports. The management of instruments status and test results or any other related information of EUT can also be carried out by combining with the background database.The automatic test platform given by this paper can efficiently verify RFID devices. The test is automatically processed according to national and international standard. Test engineer only need to do several operations to complete the test. It greatly enhanced the efficiency and accuracy of the test.Papers steps from the basic theory, firstly introduced the basic theory, history and development status of RFID. Secondly a systematic analysis of the standard which this platform according to and the test items of the platform are then given out, and then it gives out the definition of the test items with test schema. Thirdly it introduced the development of the automatic test system and the concept of the virtual instruments. The research work in this paper mainly includes the design and development of automatic test software. The general framework and database design were given out on the base of requirement analysis along with realization of the main modules of the software which according to the design.