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RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications

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A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Sensor Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 October 2018) | Viewed by 71777

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Maurizio Rebaudengo

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Guest Editor

Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
Interests: RFID; WSN
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A confluence of technological advances marks the advent of a new era. World data volume is growing at an unprecedented pace, much of it from embedded devices. Smart cities and environments are expected to grow, fed by millions of data points from multitudes of sources and sensors. Building upon a complex network connecting billions of devices and humans into a multi-technology, multi-protocol and multi-platform infrastructure, the Internet-of-Things (IoT) main vision is to create an intelligent world where the real, the digital and the virtual are converging to create smart environments that provide more intelligence to energy, health, transport, cities, industry, buildings and many other areas of our daily life. A hot topic in this field is to design sensor networks able to collect useful information to manage and control the smart environment. RFID is a key technology for sensor communication by enabling a ubiquitous and pervasive computing network.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect papers from academic and industrial players with original, previously unpublished research about new trends and solutions to still open problems in developing IoT applications. Additionally, selected papers from the 6th international EURASIP workshop on RFID technology (EURASIP RFID 2018 Workshop, http://www.eurasip-rfid.org/) with enough extensions will also be included in the special issue.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Integration of sensors with RFID tags
Modeling, Simulation and Performance in RFID
Ambient intelligence based on RFID labeling
Standards and communication protocols
Implementation issues
Security issues and protocols
Smart and programmable tags
Applications and industrial experience
Devices for the Internet of Things

Prof. Dr. Maurizio Rebaudengo
Guest Editor

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Keywords

RFID
Internet of things
WSN
Ambient intelligence
NFC
Security

Published Papers (12 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 7262 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Investigation on Pervasive Technologies for IoT-based Thermal Monitoring

by Edoardo Giusto, Filippo Gandino, Michele Luigi Greco, Michelangelo Grosso, Bartolomeo Montrucchio and Salvatore Rinaudo

Sensors 2019, 19(3), 663; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19030663 - 06 Feb 2019

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3584

Abstract

Indoor thermal monitoring is a crucial requirement for home automation, which fits inside the ever-growing Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. The IoT ecosystem aims at connecting every device exploiting specific functions, deployed in a particular place, in order to give the chance to the users to monitor and/or control some aspects of their life, or to demand this task to a proper software. In the thermal monitoring context, IoT provides new opportunities for a dense and/or large-scale distribution of sensors, which have to gather data in order to effectively control the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system. Several wireless technologies can be exploited for this scope. However, they involve different benefits and drawbacks. In particular, this study is focused on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Bluetooth®, which represent two well-known wireless technological standards used by commercial electronics but suitable also for pervasive IoT systems. These technologies are discussed and compared from several points of view, i.e., flexibility, reliability, battery life and cost of the system. A theoretical analysis highlights their benefits for the application context and evaluates their suitability to dense and large-scale monitoring systems. The theoretical results are supported by an experimental analysis based on the implementation and test of two different systems, one using RFID and the other using Bluetooth technology. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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16 pages, 3225 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An RFID-Based Sensor for Masonry Crack Monitoring

by Massimo Donelli

Sensors 2018, 18(12), 4485; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18124485 - 18 Dec 2018

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 5899

Abstract

A radio frequency identifier (RFID) tag sensor for the real time monitoring of cracks in civil engineering building is presented in this work. The RFID tag is equipped with a piezoelectric sensor able to detect small movements of crack in order to prevent collapses of buildings or civil engineering structures. The information is delivered by using the modulated scattering technique (MST) which permits to obtain high operative ranges. The sensor is passive, the power supply is provided by means of a suitable rect-antenna and a Chockcroft-Walton multiplier circuit powered by means of the impinging interrogating electromagnetic wave. A system prototype, operating in the X band at 10 GHz, has been designed fabricated and experimentally assessed in a realistic scenario obtaining promising results. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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21 pages, 514 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Effective Extension of Anti-Collision Protocol for RFID in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

by Israel Eduardo de Barros Filho, Ivanovitch Silva and Carlos M. D. Viegas

Sensors 2018, 18(12), 4426; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18124426 - 14 Dec 2018

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3557

Abstract

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is often presented as a concept that is significantly changing industry, yet continuous improvements in the identification and automation of objects are still required. Such improvements are related to communication speed, security, and reliability, critical attributes for industrial environments. In this context, the radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems present some issues related to frame collision when there are several tags transmitting data. The dynamic framed-slotted ALOHA (DFSA) is a widely used algorithm to solve collision problems in RFID systems. DFSA dynamically adjusts the frame length based on estimations of the number of labels that have competed for slots in the previous frame. Thus, the accuracy of the estimator is directly related to the label identification performance. In the literature, there are several estimators proposed to improve labels identification accuracy. However, they are not efficient when considering a large tag population, requiring a considerable amount of computational resources to perform the identification. In this context, this work proposes an estimator, which can efficiently identify a large number of labels without requiring additional computational resources. Through a set of simulations, the results demonstrate that the proposed estimator has a nearly ideal channel usage efficiency of 36.1%, which is the maximum efficiency of the DFSA protocol. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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21 pages, 31714 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Low-Cost Electronic Tagging System for Bee Monitoring

by Paulo De Souza, Peter Marendy, Karien Barbosa, Setia Budi, Pascal Hirsch, Nasiha Nikolic, Tom Gunthorpe, Gustavo Pessin and Andrew Davie

Sensors 2018, 18(7), 2124; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18072124 - 02 Jul 2018

Cited by 35 | Viewed by 7570

Abstract

This paper introduces both a hardware and a software system designed to allow low-cost electronic monitoring of social insects using RFID tags. Data formats for individual insect identification and their associated experiment are proposed to facilitate data sharing from experiments conducted with this system. The antennas’ configuration and their duty cycle ensure a high degree of detection rates. Other advantages and limitations of this system are discussed in detail in the paper. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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16 pages, 898 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Energy-Aware RFID Anti-Collision Protocol

by Laura Arjona, Hugo Landaluce Simon and Asier Perallos Ruiz

Sensors 2018, 18(6), 1904; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18061904 - 11 Jun 2018

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3623

Abstract

The growing interest in mobile devices is transforming wireless identification technologies. Mobile and battery-powered Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) readers, such as hand readers and smart phones, are are becoming increasingly attractive. These RFID readers require energy-efficient anti-collision protocols to minimize the tag collisions and to expand the reader’s battery life. Furthermore, there is an increasing interest in RFID sensor networks with a growing number of RFID sensor tags. Thus, RFID application developers must be mindful of tag anti-collision protocols. Energy-efficient protocols involve a low reader energy consumption per tag. This work presents a thorough study of the reader energy consumption per tag and analyzes the main factor that affects this metric: the frame size update strategy. Using the conclusion of this analysis, the anti-collision protocol Energy-Aware Slotted Aloha (EASA) is presented to decrease the energy consumption per tag. The frame size update strategy of EASA is configured to minimize the energy consumption per tag. As a result, EASA presents an energy-aware frame. The performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated and compared with several state of the art Aloha-based anti-collision protocols based on the current RFID standard. Simulation results show that EASA, with an average of 15 mJ consumed per tag identified, achieves a 6% average improvement in the energy consumption per tag in relation to the strategies of the comparison. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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14 pages, 2875 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Novel Displacement and Tilt Detection Method Using Passive UHF RFID Technology

by Xiaozheng Lai, Zhirong Cai, Zeming Xie and Hailong Zhu

Sensors 2018, 18(5), 1644; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18051644 - 21 May 2018

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 5233

Abstract

The displacement and tilt angle of an object are useful information for wireless monitoring applications. In this paper, a low-cost detection method based on passive radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is proposed. This method uses a standard ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID reader to measure the phase variation of the tag response and detect the displacement and tilt angle of RFID tags attached to the targeted object. An accurate displacement result can be detected by the RFID system with a linearly polarized (LP) reader antenna. Based on the displacement results, an accurate tilt angle can also be detected by the RFID system with a circularly polarized (CP) reader antenna, which has been proved to have a linear relationship with the phase parameter of the tag’s backscattered wave. As far as accuracy is concerned, the mean absolute error (MAE) of displacement is less than 2 mm and the MAE of the tilt angle is less than 2.5° for an RFID system with 500 mm working range. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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30 pages, 12122 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Ultra-Low-Power RFID/NFC Frontend IC Using 0.18 μm CMOS Technology for Passive Tag Applications

by Mayukh Bhattacharyya, Waldemar Gruenwald, Dirk Jansen, Leonhard Reindl and Jasmin Aghassi-Hagmann

Sensors 2018, 18(5), 1452; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18051452 - 07 May 2018

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 8131

Abstract

Battery-less passive sensor tags based on RFID or NFC technology have achieved much popularity in recent times. Passive tags are widely used for various applications like inventory control or in biotelemetry. In this paper, we present a new RFID/NFC frontend IC (integrated circuit) for 13.56 MHz passive tag applications. The design of the frontend IC is compatible with the standard ISO 15693/NFC 5. The paper discusses the analog design part in details with a brief overview of the digital interface and some of the critical measured parameters. A novel approach is adopted for the demodulator design, to demodulate the 10% ASK (amplitude shift keying) signal. The demodulator circuit consists of a comparator designed with a preset offset voltage. The comparator circuit design is discussed in detail. The power consumption of the bandgap reference circuit is used as the load for the envelope detection of the ASK modulated signal. The sub-threshold operation and low-supply-voltage are used extensively in the analog design—to keep the power consumption low. The IC was fabricated using 0.18

μ

m CMOS technology in a die area of 1.5 mm × 1.5 mm and an effective area of 0.7

m m^{2}

. The minimum supply voltage desired is 1.2 V, for which the total power consumption is 107

μ

W. The analog part of the design consumes only 36

μ

W, which is low in comparison to other contemporary passive tags ICs. Eventually, a passive tag is developed using the frontend IC, a microcontroller, a temperature and a pressure sensor. A smart NFC device is used to readout the sensor data from the tag employing an Android-based application software. The measurement results demonstrate the full passive operational capability. The IC is suitable for low-power and low-cost industrial or biomedical battery-less sensor applications. A figure-of-merit (FOM) is proposed in this paper which is taken as a reference for comparison with other related state-of-the-art researches. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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14 pages, 26700 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Improving Efficiency of Passive RFID Tag Anti-Collision Protocol Using Dynamic Frame Adjustment and Optimal Splitting

by Muhammad Qasim Memon, Jingsha He, Mirza Ammar Yasir and Aasma Memon

Sensors 2018, 18(4), 1185; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18041185 - 12 Apr 2018

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4631

Abstract

Radio frequency identification is a wireless communication technology, which enables data gathering and identifies recognition from any tagged object. The number of collisions produced during wireless communication would lead to a variety of problems including unwanted number of iterations and reader-induced idle slots, computational complexity in terms of estimation as well as recognition of the number of tags. In this work, dynamic frame adjustment and optimal splitting are employed together in the proposed algorithm. In the dynamic frame adjustment method, the length of frames is based on the quantity of tags to yield optimal efficiency. The optimal splitting method is conceived with smaller duration of idle slots using an optimal value for splitting level

M_{o p t}

, where (M > 2), to vary slot sizes to get the minimal identification time for the idle slots. The application of the proposed algorithm offers the advantages of not going for the cumbersome estimation of the quantity of tags incurred and the size (number) of tags has no effect on its performance efficiency. Our experiment results show that using the proposed algorithm, the efficiency curve remains constant as the number of tags varies from 50 to 450, resulting in an overall theoretical gain in the efficiency of 0.032 compared to system efficiency of 0.441 and thus outperforming both dynamic binary tree slotted ALOHA (DBTSA) and binary splitting protocols. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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12 pages, 3846 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Near-Field Chipless Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) Sensing and Identification System with Switching Reading

by Ferran Paredes, Cristian Herrojo, Javier Mata-Contreras, Miquel Moras, Alba Núñez, Eloi Ramon and Ferran Martín

Sensors 2018, 18(4), 1148; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18041148 - 09 Apr 2018

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 5520

Abstract

A chipless radio-frequency identification (chipless-RFID) and sensing system, where tags are read by proximity (near-field) through a switch, is presented. The tags consist of a set of identical resonant elements (split-ring resonators or SRRs), printed or etched at predefined and equidistant positions, forming a linear chain, each SRR providing a bit of information. The logic state (‘1’ or ‘0’) associated with each resonator depends on whether it is present or not in the predefined position. The reader is an array of power splitters used to feed a set of SRR-loaded transmission lines (in equal number to the number of resonant elements, or bits, of the tag). The feeding (interrogation) signal is a harmonic (single-tone) signal tuned to a frequency in the vicinity of the fundamental resonance of the SRRs. The set of SRR-loaded lines must be designed so that the corresponding SRRs are in perfect alignment with the SRRs of the tag, provided the tag is positioned on top of the reader. Thus, in a reading operation, as long as the tag is very close to the reader, the SRRs of the tag modify (decrease) the transmission coefficient of the corresponding reader line (through electromagnetic coupling between both SRRs), and the amplitude of the output signal is severely reduced. Therefore, the identification (ID) code of the tag is contained in the amplitudes of the output signals of the SRR-loaded lines, which can be inferred sequentially by means of a switching system. Unlike previous chipless-RFID systems based on near-field and sequential bit reading, the tags in the proposed system can be merely positioned on top of the reader, conveniently aligned, without the need to mechanically place them across the reader. Since tag reading is only possible if the tag is very close to the reader, this system can be also used as a proximity sensor with applications such as target identification. The proposed chipless-RFID and sensing approach is validated by reading a designed 4-bit tag. For identification purposes, this system is of special interest in applications where a low number of bits suffice, and tag reading by proximity is acceptable (or even convenient). Applications mostly related to secure paper, particularly involving a limited number of items (e.g., exams, ballots, etc.), in order to provide authenticity and avoid counterfeiting, are envisaged. As a proximity sensor, the system may be of use in detecting and distinguishing different targets in applications such as smart packaging. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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11 pages, 5791 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An RFID-Based Smart Nest Box: An Experimental Study of Laying Performance and Behavior of Individual Hens

by Ying-Ren Chien and Yu-Xian Chen

Sensors 2018, 18(3), 859; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18030859 - 14 Mar 2018

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 10825

Abstract

This study designed a radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based Internet of Things (IoT) platform to create the core of a smart nest box. At the sensing level, we have deployed RFID-based sensors and egg detection sensors. A low-frequency RFID reader is installed in the bottom of the nest box and a foot ring RFID tag is worn on the leg of individual hens. The RFID-based sensors detect when a hen enters or exits the nest box. The egg-detection sensors are implemented with a resistance strain gauge pressure sensor, which weights the egg in the egg-collection tube. Thus, the smart nest box makes it possible to analyze the laying performance and behavior of individual hens. An evaluative experiment was performed using an enriched cage, a smart nest box, web camera, and monitoring console. The hens were allowed 14 days to become accustomed to the experimental environment before monitoring began. The proposed IoT platform makes it possible to analyze the egg yield of individual hens in real time, thereby enabling the replacement of hens with egg yield below a pre-defined level in order to meet the overall target egg yield rate. The results of this experiment demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed RFID-based smart nest box in monitoring the egg yield and laying behavior of individual hens. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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Graphical abstract

18 pages, 2396 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Moving Object Localization Based on UHF RFID Phase and Laser Clustering

by Yulu Fu, Changlong Wang, Ran Liu, Gaoli Liang, Hua Zhang and Shafiq Ur Rehman

Sensors 2018, 18(3), 825; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18030825 - 09 Mar 2018

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 4972

Abstract

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) offers a way to identify objects without any contact. However, positioning accuracy is limited since RFID neither provides distance nor bearing information about the tag. This paper proposes a new and innovative approach for the localization of moving object using a particle filter by incorporating RFID phase and laser-based clustering from 2d laser range data. First of all, we calculate phase-based velocity of the moving object based on RFID phase difference. Meanwhile, we separate laser range data into different clusters, and compute the distance-based velocity and moving direction of these clusters. We then compute and analyze the similarity between two velocities, and select K clusters having the best similarity score. We predict the particles according to the velocity and moving direction of laser clusters. Finally, we update the weights of the particles based on K clusters and achieve the localization of moving objects. The feasibility of this approach is validated on a Scitos G5 service robot and the results prove that we have successfully achieved a localization accuracy up to 0.25 m. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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4845 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Novel Passive Wireless Sensing Method for Concrete Chloride Ion Concentration Monitoring

by Shuangxi Zhou, Wei Sheng, Fangming Deng, Xiang Wu and Zhihui Fu

Sensors 2017, 17(12), 2871; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17122871 - 11 Dec 2017

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 4910

Abstract

In this paper, a novel approach for concrete chloride ion concentration measuring based on passive and wireless sensor tag is proposed. The chloride ion sensor based on RFID communication protocol is consisting of an energy harvesting and management circuit, a low dropout voltage regulator, a MCU, a RFID tag chip and a pair of electrodes. The proposed sensor harvests energy radiated by the RFID reader to power its circuitry. To improve the stability of power supply, a three-stage boost rectifier is customized to rectify the harvested power into dc power and step-up the voltage. Since the measured data is wirelessly transmitted, it contains miscellaneous noises which would decrease the accuracy of measuring. Thus, in this paper, the wavelet denoising method is adopted to denoise the raw data. Besides, a monitoring software is developed to display the measurement results in real-time. The measurement results indicate that the proposed passive sensor tag can achieve a reliable communication distance of 16.3 m and can reliably measure the chloride ion concentration in concrete. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue RFID-Based Sensors for IoT Applications)

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