STUDY ON APPLICATION OF INTERNET OF THINGS BASED

ON RFID TECHNOLOGY

Chan Xin

College of Information Science and Technology, Heilongjiang University

No.74 Xuefu Rd., Nangang District, Ha'erbing, China

Key words: The Internet of Things, RFID technology.

Abstract: The advent of era of the Internet of Things has initiated a new information industrial revolution, attracting

more and more attention of people. The article has described the system architecture of the Internet of

Things and working principle of RFID technology, emphasized the composition and working principle of

the Internet of Things based on RFID technology, also analyzed some existent problems in the development

of the Internet of Things, and forecasted its application prospect.

1 INTRODUCTION

The concept was first put forward by the Automatic

Identification (Auto-ID) Center founded at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in

1999, which is used to solve the interconnected

problems from item to item, from human to item,

from human to human. The Internet of Things that is

considered as the third wave of world information

industry following the computer and Internet (Yang

and Gao, 2009) has arisen worldwide concerns.

Recent great progress has been made in the

development of the Internet of Things with the

major efforts of all countries based on their own

national situations. China is also highly focused on

the study on the Internet of Things, and the Ministry

of Industry and Information Technology has started

the study on new generation information technology

jointly with other organizations concerned in order

to form the policies and measures which support the

development of new generation information

technology.

With the development of the Internet of Things,

a large number of equipments for the Internet of

Things have emerged, of which RFID is widely used

in the Internet of Things since it is characterized by

its ability of reading tags at a distance, high reading

speed, identification of high-speed objects and

non-contact method. RFID technology is the core in

the systems of the Internet of Things, which is

regarded as one of the most important and promising

information technology in 21

century due to its

uniqueness and reliability (ITU, 2005).

2 OVERVIEW OF THE

INTERNET OF THINGS

The concept of “the Internet of Things” was first

proposed by Auto-ID in the United States in 1999.

In Nov. 2005, in the World Summit on the

Information Society (WSIS) held by Tunis,

International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

released ITU Internet reports 2005: Internet of

Things, which noted that the ubiquitous "Internet of

Things" heralding the dawn of communication era,

everything from tires to toothbrushes, from house to

paper towels could be communication range via the

Internet. In Nov. 2008, IBM put forward the

concept“Internet + Internet of Things = Wisdom of

the Earth”, President Obama said that the United

States would maintain and regain competitive

advantage in the 21

Century by technology of the

Internet of Things in response to the concept in Jan.

2009. In Aug. 2009, Premier Wen Jiabao proposed

“Sensing China” while doing research at sensor

network center in Wuxi City of Jiangsu Province,

China. The Internet of Things has brought a new

opportunity to the development and revolution in the

information field and will make great contributions

to solve the modern social problems. At present, the

commonly accepted definition of the Internet of

518

Xin C..

STUDY ON APPLICATION OF INTERNET OF THINGS BASED ON RFID TECHNOLOGY.

DOI: 10.5220/0003591305180521

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ITLS-2011), pages 518-521

ISBN: 978-989-8425-56-0

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Things is: through the radio frequency identification

(RFID), infrared sensors, global positioning systems,

laser scanners and other information sensing device,

to connect any items with the Internet for

information exchange and communication according

to the agreed protocol so as to achieve intelligent

identification, location, tracking, monitoring of a

network. The conceptual model diagram of the

Internet of Things is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Conceptual Model Diagrams of the Internet of

Things.

As can be seen in the above figure, the Internet

of Things makes use of sensing technology such as

RFID, sensors, two-dimensional code for

information acquisition, through integration of

wireless network with Internet to transmit the

real-time information to the users accurately, and

analyze and process vast amounts of data with

artificial intelligence technology so as to achieve

intelligent control for items.

3 RFID TECHNOLOGY

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is a

non-contact automatic identification technology,

using RF signal to automatically recognize target

and access to relevant data. RFID can

identify the

items automatically and

multiple tags

simultaneously as well as high-speed moving

objects, even under poor working conditions. It is

an advanced automatic identification technology

currently.

As a result of different application, the

composition of RFID system is not the same, which

generally consists of three basic components:

RFID

tags, readers and computer communication

network. The composing principle is shown in

Figure 2.

Computer

communication network

RFIDreader

RFIDtag

Antenna

Figure 2: RFID Reader Block Diagram.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) also

known as electronic tag consisting of coupling

element (antenna) and chips, is used as a data

storage device of RFID system. Each tag has a

unique electronic identification (ID) that is

frequently attached to the surface of the objects to be

identified to store the relevant information.

RFID reader also known as reader is mainly used

to read and erase the tag information, which can

receive and send radio signals with external antenna.

Reader can achieve the purpose of automatic

identification of objects, namely which can read and

identify the stored electronic data on the tag without

contact. Normally, RFID reader will read and

transmit the electronic tag information to the

computer connected with it to process the

corresponding data.

Computer communication network is mainly

used in collection and processing of electronic tag

and data after RFID reader read to perform

communication transfer function.

Most of RFID system follows the operating

principles of inductively coupling, first RF signals of

specific frequencies are sent from the RFID reader,

the electronic tag will be activated when it enters

into the magnetic field, and then transmit the tag

information through its antenna to the reader, after

the reader receives the information it decodes the

information, and then sends to the back-end

computer controller to carry out appropriate control

and processing according to different setting. All of

above activities are fulfilled with RFID

communication method.

4 INTERNET OF THINGS BASED

ON RFID TECHNOLOGY

RFID-based Internet of Things refers to intelligent

identification and management for all real world

items through connection of all of items with the

Internet via sensor equipment of RFID and so on.

RFID-based Internet of Things system consists of

generation

internet

Access

network

The Internet of things

RFID

WSN

Two-dimen

sional code

GPS

M2M

STUDY ON APPLICATION OF INTERNET OF THINGS BASED ON RFID TECHNOLOGY

519

following five components: tag layer, RF

communication layer, reader layer, Internet layer,

application system layer (the relationship with each

other is shown in Figure 3).

Figure 3: System of RFID-based Internet of Things.

Tag layer: it consists of two parts, items and

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags attached

to the items. Each electronic tag has stored the

information to identify the item. RFID tags can be

divided into two categories according to power

supply: active and passive RFID tags.

RF communication layer: RFID is a non-contact

automatic identification technology, using RF signal

to automatically recognize target and access to

relevant data. First the reader sends RF signal of

specific frequency, the RFID tag will produce

induced current when it comes into the work area of

transmitting antenna, and then chips on the RFID

tags will be activated, next RF tags send out their

own information through the built- in antenna, when

the antenna of the system receives the carrier signal

sent by the tag, it will transmit to the reader by

antenna controller.

Reader layer: RFID reader is wireless transmitter

/ receiver set with antenna, for sending and receiving

radio signal, which are able to read/write operations

of RFID tag. It is mainly composed of two basic

functional blocks: the control unit and RF interface,

which is characterized by strong computing

capability and large storage space. Readers system

will demodulate and decode the RF signal received

from the tag layer, and then send via the internet to

the application system for appropriate processing.

Internet layer: in the systems of RFID-based

Internet of Things, communication is via radio

signals between the tag layer and reader layer, and

via the internet between reader layer and application

system layer.

Application system layer: the main function of

application system layer is to establish practical

application in all industries by integrating all

functions of underlying systems, such as in the fields

of intelligent transportation, item identification,

electronic tickets, anti-counterfeit of commodity,

urban intelligent management, identification,

agricultural food management. Since application

system generally includes back-end database

systems, which is mainly used to store the

information of RFID tags, this system is required to

have strong computing power and large storage

space.

5 APPLICATION OF SYSTEM OF

INTERNET OF THINGS BASED

ON RFID TECHNOLOGY

Owing to its uniquely identifying characteristic,

RFID tag has sparked the interest of people in the

application study on RFID-based technology, and

the Internet of Things has been a study hotspot at

present. In recent years, study and applications of

RFID have accelerated the pace in China, as the

national informatization pilot list released by the

National Development and Reform Commission in

2009 contains RFID project involving a number of

areas such as production, manufacturing, logistics,

warehousing, transportation, food security, mobile

payment, special equipment, electronic toll

collection (ETC), the Internet of Things is getting

closer to our lives.

The Internet of Things is widely used in many

fields, for example: in the municipal operation and

management, it is used to monitor conditions of key

infrastructure such as water, electricity, heat, gas and

underground pipelines, thereby improving the

municipal management level, it is also used to take

hold of situation of various types of vehicles and

personnel by means of video surveillance, sensor,

telecommunication system and Global Positioning

System (GPS) etc.; in the fields of agriculture and

food processing, via unified RFID and database

system, the Internet of Things can establish

agriculture by-products and food traceability system

so that concern of the real-time and dynamic

information are realized and any problems that arise

are handled in a timely manner; the Internet of

Things may also be applied in the transportation

area, using modern information technology to realize

the real-time monitor of traffic conditions,

automated toll of road, intelligent parking and

real-time online GPS vehicle tracking; in the

medical field, the Internet of Things may perform

Internet layer

RFID RFID

RFID

Tag

layer

Reader

layer

Reader

Identification

E-ticket

Intelligent

transportation

Application

system layer

Internet layer

RF communication

layer

ICEIS 2011 - 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

520

the functions of medical supervision, drug

administration, medical electronic records

management, monitoring of plasma collection, etc.

Furthermore, the Internet of Things also plays an

important role in the public health emergency

management, home remote control, telemedicine,

security monitoring, etc, which greatly improves the

quality of life.

6 EXISTENT PROBLEMS IN THE

DEVELOPMENT OF THE

INTERNET OF THINGS

At present, the Internet of Things still has some

urgent problems which need to be resolved although

it has made our lives easier.

1) Standard Problem

First, because the Internet of Things is related to

wireless transmission that has lots of transmission

protocols, it is inevitable to integrate these protocols

for a more effective use. Second, there is no standard

architecture generally accepted for Internet of

Things so far, and lots of protocols have no common

interface either. Such problems have hindered the

development of the Internet of Things.

2) Price Problem

Owing to the higher cost of production of chips

for the Internet of Things at present, it is unrealistic

to attach this kind of identification chips with high

cost to all items. Moreover, the transformation of

existing products to meet the requirement of the

Internet of Things also has a relatively high cost and

needs huge investment. However, as the

development of technology and industrial upgrading

of industry of things of internet, the cost will

continue to decline gradually.

3) Security Problem

Since the small-sized items accessed to the

Internet of Things can not carry the higher frequen-

cies, more secure application can not be achieved.

Furthermore, due to the wide varieties of items

attached on the Internet of Things leading to close

connection and large amounts of data and personal

privacy transmitted over the Internet, the chief

problem is to ensure these information not be

cracked among the obstruction of the development

of the Internet of Things.

4) Problem of Policies and Regulations

Since the Internet of Things involves all kinds of

industries which need to be integrated, the state is

required to formulate the policies and legislation

suitable for this industry growth so as to guarantee

its normal and order development

7 CONCLUSIONS

With consideration of the above problems, the

Internet of Things needs to be developed

energetically by improving the relevant laws and

regulations as soon as possible, setting up uniform

standards and specifications, working out a set of

RFID standardization system, increasing the study

on the security of RFID, following the development

principles “with the application as the driving force,

technology as the core, and standardization as the

safeguard” so as to promote the whole industrial

chain development of the Internet of Thing.

REFERENCES

Yang Yong-zhi and Gao, Jian-hua. A Study on the

”Internet of Things” and Its Scientific Development in

china [J] Circulating Economics in China, 2009, 2,:

46-49

International Telecommunication Union, UIT ITU Internet

Reports 2005: The Internet of Things 2005[R].

Geneva: ITU, 2005.

Li Ru-nian. Study on the Internet of Things Based on

RFID Technology [J]. Journal of China Academy of

Elecronics and Information Technology, 2009,

6,:594-597

Dai Ding-yi. The Internet of Things & Smart Logistics [J].

Logistics and Material Handling,2010, 6,:30-35

Kortuem G., Kawsar F., Sundramoorthy V. et al. Smart

objects as building blocks for the Internet of Things[J].

IEEE Internet Computing, 2010, 14(1): 44-51

Sun Qi-bo, Liu Jie et al. Internet of Things: Summarize on

Concepts, Architecture and Key Technology Problem

[J]. Journal of Beijing University of Posts and

Telecommunications, 2010, 33(3): 1-9

Giner P., Cetina C, Fons J. et al. Developing mobile

business processes for the Internet of Things [J].IEEE

Pervasive Computing, 2010, 9(2): 18-26

Wang Kaijiang, Sun wei. RFID application intelligent

warehouse management [J]. RFID Technology and

Application, 2009, 1: 43-45.

Shen Subin, Fan Quli, Zong Ping et al. Study on the

architecture and associated technologies for Internet of

Things[J]. Joumal of Nanjing University of Posts and

Telecommunications, 2009, 29(6): 1-11.

Liu Hua-jun. Research on Key Technology for Internet of

Things [J].Computer Era, 2010, 7: 4-6

STUDY ON APPLICATION OF INTERNET OF THINGS BASED ON RFID TECHNOLOGY

521