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A Review of Tags Anti-collision and Localization Protocols in RFID Networks

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Abstract

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) has allowed the realization of ubiquitous tracking and monitoring of physical objects wirelessly with minimum human interactions. It plays a key role in a wide range of applications including asset tracking, contactless payment, access control, transportation and logistics, and other industrial applications. On the other side, RFID systems face several technical challenges that need to be overcome in order to achieve their potential benefits; tags collisions and localization of tagged objects are two important challenges. Numerous anti-collision and localization protocols have been proposed to address these challenges. This paper reviews the state-of-art tags’ anti-collision and localization protocols, and provides a deep insight into technical issues of these protocols. The probabilistic and deterministic anti-collision protocols are critically studied and compared in terms of different parameters. We further review distance estimation, scene analysis, and proximity localization schemes and provide useful suggestions. We also introduce a new hybrid direction that utilizes power control to spatially partition the interrogation range of a reader for more efficient anti-collision and localization. Finally, we present the applications of RFID systems in healthcare sectors.

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Abbreviations

RFID:

Radio frequency identification

DoD:

Department of defense

RF-ITV:

Radio frequency in-transit visibility

LF:

Low frequency

HF:

High frequency

UHF:

Ultra high frequency

SDMA:

Space division multiple access

FDMA:

Frequency division multiple access

TDMA:

Time division multiple access

CDMA:

Code division multiple access (CDMA)

PA:

Pure-Aloha

SA:

Slotted Aloha

FSA:

Framed-slotted Aloha

ACK:

Acknowledgement

NACK:

Negative acknowledgement

STAC:

Slotted terminal adaptive collection

EPC:

Electronic product code

BFSA:

Basic FSA

DFSA:

Dynamic FSA

EDFSA:

Enhanced DFSA

GB-DFSA:

Grouping-based DFSA

QT:

Query tree

BT:

Binary tree

TS:

Tree splitting

BTA:

Bitwise-arbitration

CTTA:

Collision tracking tree algorithm

MSB:

Most significant bit

LSB:

Least significant bit

RN:

Random numbers

DFS:

Depth first search

PDC:

Power-based distance clustering

RPs:

Reference points

RSS:

Received signal strength

VIRE:

Virtual reference elimination

SAW:

Surface acoustic wave

TOA:

Time of arrival

TDOA:

Time difference of arrival

WHO:

World health organization

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the National Plan for Science and Technology at King Saud University, Project No: 11-INF1500.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chair of Pervasive and Mobile Computing, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    S. Ullah & W. Alsalih

  2. College of Computer and Information Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    S. Ullah, W. Alsalih, A. Alsehaim & N. Alsadhan

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  1. S. Ullah
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  2. W. Alsalih
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  4. N. Alsadhan
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Correspondence to S. Ullah.

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Ullah, S., Alsalih, W., Alsehaim, A. et al. A Review of Tags Anti-collision and Localization Protocols in RFID Networks. J Med Syst 36, 4037–4050 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-012-9876-5

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