A Theory of RFID Anti-collision Mechanisms

Due to the recent advances in semiconductor technology, the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is approaching the critical point for inventory application in global supply chain logistics. Its unique advantage to identify multiple tags simultaneously can remove large amount of labor-intensive scanning for inventory control and checkout process. To realize multiple-tag-identification, the tag collision problem, which is due to the signal collision of simultaneous transmission by multiple tags, needs to be solved.;Over the years, many different RFID systems and anti-collision algorithms were proposed, but a uniform theory which fully analyzes the anti-collision system is still lacking. Most of the previous work treated the RFID system as a special kind of Random Access (RA) system and designed anti-collision algorithms to maximize the temporary throughput. In this thesis, we provide a theoretical framework for the RFID anti-collision system. We differentiate the RFID system with the RA system and propose a general model for all types of the RFID systems. We also provide a general method for algorithm optimization in different RFID systems. As special examples, we analyze some popular RFID systems and derive the optimal algorithms under the system constraints. These optimal results are verified by computer simulation.