RAC-Multi: Reader Anti-Collision Algorithm for Multichannel Mobile RFID Networks

Abstract: At present, RFID is installed on mobile devices such as mobile phones or PDAs and provides a means to obtain information about objects equipped with an RFID tag over a multi-channeled telecommunication networks. To use mobile RFIDs, reader collision problems should be addressed given that readers are continuously moving. Moreover, in a multichannel environment for mobile RFIDs, interference between adjacent channels should be considered. This work first defines a new concept of a reader collision problem between adjacent channels and then suggests a novel reader anti-collision algorithm for RFID readers that use multiple channels. To avoid interference with adjacent channels, the suggested algorithm separates data channels into odd and even numbered channels and allocates odd-numbered channels first to readers. It also sets an unused channel between the control channel and data channels to ensure that control messages and the signal of the adjacent channel experience no interference. Experimental results show that suggested algorithm shows throughput improvements ranging from 29% to 46% for tag identifications compared to the GENTLE reader anti-collision algorithm for multichannel RFID networks.