Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Radio Frequency Identification
Radio Frequency Identification
Done By:
Kanisha Fanse(17070124504)
Pinkal Patel(17070124510)
Kshitija Shingte(17070124512)
What is RFID?
– Inventory management
– Asset tracking
– Personnel tracking
– Controlling access to restricted areas
– Supply chain management
– Counterfeit prevention (e.g. in the pharmaceutical industry)
Components of RFID:
A RFID tag: It consists of a silicon microchip attached to a small antenna and mounted on
a substrate and encapsulated in different materials like plastic or glass veil and with an
adhesive on the back side to be attached to objects.
A reader: It consists of a scanner with antennas to transmit and receive signals
and is responsible for communication with the tag and receives the
information from the tag.
RFID tags are made up of an integrated circuit (IC), an antenna and a substrate. The part of an RFID tag that
encodes identifying information is called the RFID inlay.
There are two main types of RFID tags: active RFID and passive RFID. An active RFID tag has its own power
source, often a battery. A passive RFID tag, on the other hand, does not require batteries; rather it receives
its power from the reading antenna, whose electromagnetic wave induces a current in the RFID tag's
antenna. There are also semi-passive RFID tags, meaning a battery runs the circuitry while communication
is powered by the RFID reader.
Low power, embedded non-volatile memory plays an important role in every RFID system. RFID tags
typically hold less than 2,000 KB of data, including a unique identifier/serial number. Tags can be read-only
or read-write, where data can be added by the reader or existing data overwritten.
The read range for RFID tags varies based on factors including type of tag, type of reader, RFID frequency,
and interference in the surrounding environment or from other RFID tags and readers. Generally speaking,
active RFID tags have a longer read range than passive RFID tags due to the stronger power source.
RFID frequencies
There are three main types of RFID systems: low frequency (LF), high frequency (HF) and ultra-high frequency (UHF).
Microwave RFID is also available. Frequencies vary greatly by country and region.
Low-frequency RFID systems range from 30 KHz to 500 KHz, though the typical frequency is 125 KHz. LF RFID has
short transmission ranges, generally anywhere from a few inches to less than six feet.
High-frequency RFID systems range from 3 MHz to 30 MHz, with the typical HF frequency being 13.56 MHz. The
standard range is anywhere from a few inches to several feet.
UHF RFID systems range from 300 MHz to 960 MHz, with the typical frequency of 433 MHz and can generally be read
from 25-plus feet away.
Microwave RFID systems run at 2.45 GHz and can be read from more than 30-plus feet away.
The frequency used will depend on the RFID application, with actual obtained distances sometimes varying
considerably from what might be expected. For example, when the U.S. State Department announced it was to issue
electronic passports enabled with an RFID chip, it said the chips would only be able to be read from approximately four
inches away. However, the State Department was soon confronted with evidence that RFID readers could skim the
information from the RFID tags from much farther than 4 inches, some claiming upward of 33 feet away, proving the
difference between advertised and actual range can vary immensely.
If read longer ranges are needed, using particular tags with additional power can boost read ranges to 300-plus feet.
RFID applications and use cases
RFID dates back to the 1940s; it was used more frequently in the
1970s. For a long time, however, the high cost of the tags and readers
prohibited widespread commercial use. As hardware costs have
decreased, RFID adoption has also increased.
The most common RFID application is for tracking and management.
This includes pet and livestock tracking, inventory management and
asset tracking, cargo and supply chain logistics, and vehicle tracking.
RFID can also be used in retail for advertising customer service and
loss control; in the supply chain for improved visibility and
distribution; and in security situations for access control.
Multiple industries use RFID applications, including healthcare,
manufacturing, retail, business and home use.
RFID challenges
A common RFID security or privacy concern is that RFID tag data can be read by anyone with a compatible reader.
Additionally, tags can often be read after the item leaves the store or supply chain. Tags can also be read without the
user's knowledge, and if the tag has a unique serial number, it can be associated to a consumer. While a privacy
concern for individuals, in military or medical settings this can be a national security concern or life-or-death matter.
Because RFID tags do not have a lot of compute power, they are unable to accommodate encryption, such as might be
used in a challenge-response authentication system. One exception to this, however, is specific to the RFID tags used
in passports, basic access control (BAC). Here, the chip has sufficient compute power to decode an encrypted token
from the reader, thus proving the validity of the reader. At the reader, in turn, information printed on the passport is
machine-scanned and used to derive a key for the passport. There are three pieces of information used -- the passport
number, the birth date of the passport holder and the passport's expiration date -- along with a checksum digit for each
of the three. Researchers have pointed out that this means passports are protected by a password with considerably
less entropy than is normally used in e-commerce, and further that the key is static for the life of the passport, so that
once an entity has had one-time access to the printed key information, the passport is readable with or without the
consent of the passport bearer until the passport expires. The U.S. State Department, which adopted the BAC system
in 2007, additionally has added an anti-skimming material to electronic passports to mitigate the threat of undetected
attempts to steal users' personal information.
RFID standards
There are a number of guidelines and specifications for RFID technology, with
the main ones being the International Organization for Standardization (ISO),
Electronics Product Code Global Incorporated (EPCglobal) and International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
Each radio frequency has associated standards, including ISO 14223 and
ISO/IEC 18000-2 for LF RFID, ISO 15693 and ISO/IEC 14443 for HF RFID, and ISO
18000-6C for UHF RFID.
Next-generation RFID use
RFID systems are becoming increasingly used to support internet of
things deployments. Combining the technology with smart sensors
and/or GPS technology allows sensor data including temperature, movement
and location to be wirelessly transmitted.
THANKYOU