Sustainable Radio Frequency Identification Solutions Sustainable Radio Frequency Identification Solutions Edited by Cristina Turcu Intech IV Published by Intech Intech Olajnica 19/2, 32000 Vukovar, Croatia Abstracting and non-profit use of the material is permitted with credit to the source. Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. Publisher assumes no responsibility liability for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained inside. After this work has been published by the Intech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are an author or editor, and the make other personal use of the work. © 2010 Intech Free online edition of this book you can find under www.sciyo.com Additional copies can be obtained from: publication@sciyo.com First published February 2010 Printed in India Technical Editor: Teodora Smiljanic Cover designed by Dino Smrekar Sustainable Radio Frequency Identification Solutions, Edited by Cristina Turcu p. cm. ISBN 978-953-7619-74-9 Preface Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a fascinating, fast developing and multidisciplinary domain with emerging technologies and applications. It is characterized by a variety of research topics, analytical methods, models, protocols, design principles and processing software. With a relatively large range of applications, RFID enjoys extensive investor confidence and is poised for growth. To put it differently, significant technological advances and falling RFID tag and readers prices enable more and more organisations to adopt RFID solutions. RFID has been successfully applied in manufacturing, retail, supply chain, livestock, asset and people tracking, etc. and also has received much attention from the medical care industry (e.g. asset tracking in operating rooms and emergency rooms, patient and baby tracking solutions, etc.). Revolutionary experiments have been also conducted on the International Space Station. A number of RFID applications proposed or already used in technical and scientific fields are described in this book. Sustainable Radio Frequency Identification Solutions comprises 19 chapters written by RFID experts from all over the world. In investigating RFID solutions experts reveal some of the real-life issues and challenges in implementing RFID. In the first chapter of this book, the authors identify and discuss major challenges of RFID infrastructure for large scale supply chains involving small and medium enterprises. Their analysis is based on two national projects in Australia. Then, they discuss a virtualisation model which incorporates an existing RFID framework based on the EPC Network to be applied in large-scale supply chains. Chapter 2 analyzes the CJ-Global Logistics Service business model with Blue Ocean strategy to show how a company in the Red Ocean reinforces its competitive advantage to move towards a less competitive new market space by utilizing information technologies. In chapter 3 several authors share the challenges of using RFID tags with embedded temperature sensors in cold chain logistics for perishable food and pharmaceuticals products. Chapter 4 analyzes the main issues of RFID-enabled traceability along the supply chain: existing methods, applications and future challenges. Thus, the authors point out the characteristics of RFID data and the requirements for RFID enabled traceability. They introduce data types, storage schemes and system frameworks proposed in the existing VI literatures. Then, the authors discuss tracing methods based on the traceability system architecture. The chapter also contains an overview of current applications in real settings of both discrete and continuous production. The authors also discuss challenges that are preventing companies from adopting RFID for their traceability solutions. Chapter 5 presents a number of traceability methods that can be used to improve traceability in continuous processes with a special focus on RFID. The authors exemplify how RFID may be applied and combined with other methods to improve traceability in continuous processes with two examples from continuous refinement process of iron ore and from wood refinement process. Also, additional RFID applications to improve traceability in continuous processes are described. Various benefits of using RFID to improve traceability in continuous processes are identified and discussed from well- described RFID applications. Also, special challenges using RFID in continuous processes are identified; they are followed by the presentation of several solutions to be adopted in solving or avoiding such challenges. Finally, the authors describe some ideas for future research projects and ongoing research projects. Chapter 6 presents a case study of an RFID-based system for the identification and tracking of pilgrims. The author describes a developed prototype employing a passive RFID wristband tag for identification of pilgrims in holy areas during Hajj. Thus, RFID technology was chosen assist the authorities in the Hajj season. Chapter 7 approaches the implementation protocol using RFID technology and biometric identifiers in the context of Irish bovine traceability. The use of retinal images as a biometric, to verify identity would provide a system check that would be virtually fraud- proof. Thus, the described system would be able to identify cattle whose ear tag has been tampered with, providing a mechanism for source and identity verification of Irish beef products. In chapter 8 the author identifies and analyzes several airports issues and describes ways to use RFID for improving passenger and baggage handling at airports. Finally, the benefits of applying the RFID technology for several airport operations are presented. Chapter 9 discusses the implementation of RFID integrated with biometric sensor to improve boarding school management of students and facilities. The technologies used to develop monitoring systems and some methods to enhance the security level of the system are presented. Finally, based on the application scenario described, the authors describe the developed monitoring system and discuss the flow of the overall system. In chapter 10 the authors closely examine the evolution of technology, architectures, and approaches to solution building in the RFID field. They examine those components that have benefited from standards that now have become the building blocks for solutions that when combined with business processes unleash a greater business value. Furthermore, the authors look at the options to templatize parts of the process to accelerate the integration and reuse of these components and to ultimately deliver a greater ROI in a shorter period of time. Chapter 11 focuses on RFID applications for sanitary environments. The main characteristics of sanitary environments are described and a major focus lies on scenarios where the use of RFID technology is indispensable. Then, some standard application scenarios for item tracking and for people tracking are presented. Also, potential problems deriving from the introduction of radio technology into an environment with sharp safety requirements are approached; the authors discuss possible interferences with other devices and refer to several law recommendations. Finally, significant potential improvements deriving from the refinement of the technology are considered and discussed. VII The broad objective of chapter 12 is to show how RFID technology can be used to reduce medical mistakes, to improve patient safety and to enhance the quality of medical service in hospitals. After a brief introduction of the eHealth domain and the survey of several healthcare issues, this chapter focuses on how RFID technology can be efficiently used in the healthcare domain; thus, some concrete hospital issues and case studies are presented. An overview of a medical staff and patients tracking application architecture is given. The authors show how to use this application to improve the quality of hospital services. This chapter also identifies several problems in the healthcare system that must be solved prior to the introduction of the RFID technology. Chapter 13 deals with an application based on RFID technology which directs a person to a desired destination in an unfamiliar environment. Related studies on current signage solutions are described. The proposed system architecture and the employed technology are presented. The hardware and software aspects of the implementation of the system are described by suggesting cost-effective hardware solutions and briefing the used algorithm. A deployment scenario is also presented. Finally, potential future improvements are discussed. The major aim of chapter 14 is to highlight the contributions of RFID systems modeling. Conventional and emerging RFID applications in healthcare are reviewed. This chapter introduces the agent based modeling technique, invoked to investigate system performance in an application for RFID-enabled patient tracking within a hospital emergency department. The agent-based model simulation results are outlined. Finally, the authors discuss implementation strategies for an RFID real-time location system for patient tracking, reflecting a service oriented architecture approach. Chapter 15 focuses on the progress achieved in the development of RFID writers/readers used in the collection of damaged information, as well as in information sharing and damaged information collection systems. Thus, this chapter presents an RFID writer/reader functioning as an information resource tool in rescue activities in various disaster areas; consequently, it allows rescue crews to instantaneously collect vital information in a non-contact fashion and then inform the authorities outside the afflicted areas about the conditions in the investigated regions. Chapter 16 deals with low-cost identification applications in traffic vehicular environments. Firstly, a state of the art of the applications developed in a worldwide framework is outlined. Secondly, a summary of the ERI standards and the architecture of the developed application for several technologies (RFID, Bluetooth and WiFi) are presented. Finally, the tests performed on the developed system are explained and the results for each test are analyzed. Chapter 17 focuses on ways of integrating data across disparate sensing systems over both time and space in order to design smart environments. This chapter presents several research problems and their solutions developed for building hazard aware spaces. A method for deploying sensors remotely with a robot is developed. Different modalities of controlling the robot (e.g. voice, gestures, a mouse or a keyboard) and several aspects related to fusing multiple simultaneous commands are considered. After analyzing the tradeoffs of localization approaches, the authors explore the effectiveness of passive RFID technology in localization procedures. They have proposed a methodology for building a sensor model for accurate RFID-based localization in addition to the standard acoustic time- of-flight ranging and stereo vision localization methods. Finally, they have concentrated on proactive approaches to camera control, spectral image analysis and human alert VIII mechanisms; they have briefly outlined a few challenges in application scenarios similar to the hazard aware space. Chapter 18 proposes an investigation of RFID context-aware systems. Thus it surveys and classifies existing RFID context-aware systems. The authors concentrate upon defining and clarifying concepts related to context-awareness. Moreover, several design issues related to context-aware systems are investigated. The chapter comprises a section investigating the use of RFID in a museum exhibition guide system that provides the most suitable services to be offered to visitors based on the context information. The described system proves highly efficient in guided tours because it never ignores the location of its users and because it is always ready to perform its duties in accordance with every user’s instructions and preferences. The final chapter of this book goes beyond identification matters and also addresses aspects referring to the representation of real world objects and actors in radio frequency identification. The chapter introduces a novel RF tag architecture called Object Tag (OTag), to represent the real world objects and actors in RF tags. Finally, possible applications are derived using the OTag architecture. OTag is introduced to improve the existing intelligent transportation systems and it enables a large array of novel applications. I hope that this book will give to the readers many solutions and ideas in design and implementation of another efficient RFID architectures and applications. Many thanks go to all authors who contributed to this book and shared their knowledge, and without whom this book would not have been possible. Finally, my appreciation goes to Intech team that is behind the scenes, but without its hard work this book would never have appeared. Editor Cristina TURCU Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava Romania Contents Preface V 1. RFID Infrastructure for Large Scale Supply Chains Involving Small and Medium Enterprises 001 John P.T. Mo and William Lorchirachoonkul 2. A RFID Based Ubiquitous-Oriented 3rd Party Logistics System: Towards a Blue Ocean Market 023 Changsu Kim, Kyung Hoon Yang, and Jae Kyung Kim 3. Monitoring Cold Chain Logistics by Means of RFID 037 Luis Ruiz-Garcia and Loredana Lunadei 4. RFID-enabled Supply Chain Traceability: Existing Methods, Applications and Challenges 051 Dongmyung Lee and Jinwoo Park 5. Applications of RFID to Improve Traceability in Continuous Processes 069 Björn Kvarnström and Johan Oja 6. A Case Study of an RFID-based System for Pilgrims Identification and Tracking 087 Mohamed Mohandes 7. Implementation Protocol Utilising Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Biometric Identifiers; In the Context of Irish Bovine Traceability 105 Conor Shanahan, Gashaw Ayalew, Francis Butler, Shane Ward and Kevin McDonnell X 8. Improving on Passenger and Baggage Processes at Airports with RFID 121 Katalin Emese Bite 9. Fusion of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Fingerprint in Boarding School Monitoring System (BoSs) 139 Herdawatie Abdul Kadir, Mohd. Helmy Abd. Wahab, Zarina Tukiran Mohd Razali Mohd Tomari and Mohd Norzali Hj. Mohd 10. Accelerating Time to Value for RFID Solutions with Reusable Assets 159 Han Chen, Paul Chou, Sastry S. Dury and Jim A. Laredo 11. RFID Applications for Sanitary Environments 175 Giuliano Benelli, Stefano Parrino and Alessandro Pozzebon 12. RFID-based Information System for Patients and Medical Staff Identification and Tracking 193 Tudor Ioan CERLINCA, Cristina TURCU, Cornel TURCU and Marius CERLINCA 13. RFID-based Direction Finding Signage System (DFSS) for Healthcare Facilities 207 Nitin Sharma and Jong-Hoon Youn 14. RFID Modeling in Healthcare 217 M. Laskowski, B.C.P. Demianyk, G. Naigeboren, B.W. Podaima, M.R. Friesen and R.D. McLeod 15. RFID-based Disaster-relief System 241 Osamu Takizawa 16. Low Cost Identification Applications in Traffic Vehicular Environments 267 Jaume Segura, Juan G. Jordán, Miguel A. Jaen, Francisco R. Soriano and Antonio Soriano 17. Integration of Data Across Disparate Sensing Systems Over Both Time and Space to Design Smart Environments 281 Peter Bajcsy and Rob Kooper 18. RFID Context-aware Systems 307 Jongmyung Choi 19. Beyond Identification: Representing Real World Objects and Actors in Radio Frequency Identification 331 Krishan Sabaragamu Koralalage, Noriaki Yoshiura, and Takaomi Shigehara [...]... pallet) were immediately available to other partners once the information was logged to the global EPC information server The timely information improved the efficiency of the supply chain 4 Sustainable Radio Frequency Identification Solutions Fig 1 Track and trace for item urn:epc:id:sgtin:00 413 33 .14 15 01. 279007 31 2.2 The NDP extension Following the NDP, some of the partners continued the research and re-grouped... based upon physical RFID tags being read by RFID readers which reside over a gate or doorway As products containing RFID tags move across the RFID readers, the location of the products is confirmed This feature may be very useful for traceability in a warehouse operation environment, but it may not be necessary when products move across two trading parties Since the objective of the RFID reader is to... Since supply chain participation is a loosely coupled relationship, increased mobility of information infrastructure will significantly improve the efficiency of supply chain system set-ups and encourage cost effective partnering relationships To develop a virtualised RFID infrastructure, it is necessary to use alternative technologies that function as RFID in the absence of RFID Since RFID is relative... Acco Westgate Logistics Average Labour cost $/hr Standard Time min/ delivery EPC Process Time min/ delivery Increased Efficiency % $32 $28 $25 $23 $ 31 35 35 38 35 45 23 30 36 30 35 34.3% 14 .3% 5.3% 14 .3% 22.2% 18 .1% Table 1 EPC process efficiency gain The efficiency gain and hence cost reduction due to the elimination of data entry, verification and reconciliation processes was significant, especially... items in transition The various NDP partners jointly developed the system to support these 6 Sustainable Radio Frequency Identification Solutions transactions The system must maintain consistency across physical and organizational boundaries The partners adopted a six-layer model (Figure 2), from the EPCglobal architecture, which specified the top three layers The partners developed the operational... 1 RFID Infrastructure for Large Scale Supply Chains Involving Small and Medium Enterprises John P.T Mo and William Lorchirachoonkul RMIT University Australia 1 Introduction A “manufacturing based supply chain” containing a broad spectrum of partners, including manufacturers, third party logistic providers, distributors and retailers, all of... system efficiency and reliability Ironically, large organisations, which already embrace RFID technology, will often need to communicate with SMEs that may not choose to implement RFID due to resource constraints Under these circumstances, there is no other physical way in that the RFID tags can be read or updated in some parts of the supply chain, the entire information link is disrupted One of the ways... IDentification solutions for the Global Environment” (BRIDGE) was supported by the European Community sixth framework programme to resolve the barriers to the implementation of the EPCglobal Network in Europe (Soppera et al, 2007) The BRIDGE project aimed to develop easy-to-use technological solutions for the European business communities, including the SMEs These 2 Sustainable Radio Frequency Identification Solutions. .. longer period We then discuss a virtualisation model which incorporates existing RFID framework based on the EPC Network for application in large scale supply chains The model allows alternative technologies to verify the position of the RFID tags and then updates the existing RFID framework to ensure that the traceability of the RFID tags remain intact, even if there is an interruption in data along sections... service points to a particular EPC information service (EPC-IS) in which companies can obtain detailed information on a specific item • Local ONS Each industry partner maintains its own repository of product-specific data The local ONS provides a pointer to the local database • EPC-IS At each site, the industry partners maintain details about site-specific product data that other participants can query . 10 . Accelerating Time to Value for RFID Solutions with Reusable Assets 15 9 Han Chen, Paul Chou, Sastry S. Dury and Jim A. Laredo 11 . RFID Applications for Sanitary Environments 17 5. Frequency Identification Solutions 4 Fig. 1. Track and trace for item urn:epc:id:sgtin:00 413 33 .14 15 01. 279007 31 2.2 The NDP extension Following the NDP, some of the partners continued the. 14 . RFID Modeling in Healthcare 217 M. Laskowski, B.C.P. Demianyk, G. Naigeboren, B.W. Podaima, M.R. Friesen and R.D. McLeod 15 . RFID- based Disaster-relief System 2 41 Osamu