You are on page 1of 5

The Journal of China

Universities of Posts and


Telecommunications
April 2013, 20(2): 3741
www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10058885

http://jcupt.xsw.bupt.cn

Tree-based backoff protocol for fast RFID tag identification


ZHENG Jia-li1,2 (), QIN Tuan-fa1, NI Guang-nan2
1. School of Computer and Electronic Information, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
2. Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100190, China

Abstract
This paper proposes a tree-based backoff (TBB) protocol that reduces the number of iterations implemented in the
procedure of tag collision arbitration in radio frequency identification (RFID) systems. This is achieved by employing the
following mechanisms: one is send the request command iteratively to all tags in the interrogation zone until a single tag is
identified. The other is backward to the parent node instead of root node to obtain the request parameters and send the
request command again until all tags are identified. Compared with the traditional tree-based protocol, on average,
simulated results show that the TBB protocol reduces the number of the iterations by 72.3% and the identification delay by
58.6% and achieves the goal of fast tag identification.
Keywords

RFID, tag collision arbitration, tree-based anti-collision protocol

1 Introduction
The RFID system [12] is an automatic technology
widely used in the fields of medicine, traffic, service
industries, distribution logistics and manufacturing
companies, etc. [3]. An RFID system usually consists of an
RFID reader, which is a transmitter/receiver module
connected to an antenna and a set of RFID tags, each of
which is a low functionality microchip connected to an
antenna. Generally, a tag that is attached to an object,
typically stores information about that object [4]. This
information may range from static identification (serial
number), to user written data (cost of the item), to sensory
data (temperature of a boiler). The reader uses radio signals
to communicate with the tag and access this information.
The operation of an RFID system often involves a
situation in which numerous tags are present in the
interrogation zone of a single reader at the same time, as
shown in Fig. 1. This leads to collisions because readers and
tags communicate over a shared channel capacity [5]. The
available channel capacity must be divided among the
individual tags so that data can be transferred from several
Received date: 19-07-2012
Corresponding author: ZHENG Jia-li, E-mail: lemontree312@live.cn
DOI: 10.1016/S1005-8885(13)60025-4

tags to a single reader without mutual interference. Many


procedures [6] have been developed with the objective of
separating the individual signals from one another. Basically,
there are four different procedures: space division multiple
access (SDMA), frequency domain multiple access (FDMA),
time domain multiple access (TDMA) and code division
multiple access (CDMA), otherwise known as spreadspectrum. However, these classical procedures are based
upon the assumption of an uninterrupted data stream both
from and to the tags. Once a channel capacity has been split,
it remains split until the communication relationship ends.
Many tag anti-collision protocols have been studied to
handle this problem. At large, there are two types of
tag anti-collision protocols: additive link on-line
HAwaii (ALOHA) [7] and tree-based protocols [810].

Fig. 1

A reader communicates with multiple tags simultaneously

38

The Journal of China Universities of Posts and Telecommunications

ALOHA anti-collision protocols

The ALOHA anti-collision protocol is used exclusively


with passive tags, which generally have to transfer only a
small amount of data; this data being sent to the reader in a
cyclical sequence. The data transmission time represents
only a fraction of the repetition times, so there are
relatively long pauses among transmissions. Furthermore,
the repetition times for the individual tags differ slightly.
Therefore, there is a certain probability that two tags can
transmit their data packets at different times and that the
data packets will not collide with each other.
In an ALOHA system Eq. (1) the offered load G
corresponds to the number of tags transmitting
simultaneously at a certain point in time t. The average
offered load G is the average over an observation period T
and is extremely simple to calculate from the transmission
duration of a data packet:

n
rn
(1)
1 T
where n = 1, 2, 3,is the number of tags in the system and
rn =0,1,2,is the number of data packets that are

Then a suitable bit coding is required, such as NRZ


(non-return-to-zero) and Manchester coding. In the
following, we describe the protocol using an example of
four tags with an 8-bit serial number in the interrogation
zone of the reader, as shown in Table 1. For the practical
realisation of the protocol, we employ Manchester coding
and introduce a set of commands that can be processed by
the tags, as shown in Table 2.
Table 1

transmitted by tag n during the observation period. The


throughput S is 1 for the transmission duration of an
error-free (collision-free) data packet transmission. In all
other cases it is 0, because data were either not transmitted
or could not be read without errors due to a collision. For
the average throughput S of a transmission channel, we
find from the offered load G:
(2)
S = Ge ( 2G )
If we consider the throughput S in relation to the offered
load G, we find a maximum of 18.4% at G = 0.5. For a
smaller offered load, the transmission channel would be
unused most of the time; if the offered load were increased,
the number of collisions among the individual tags would
immediately increase sharply.

Tree-based anti-collision protocols

Tree-based anti-collision protocols that employ the


TDMA procedure are based on tag serial numbers and
communication time slots. Usually, every tag has only a
serial number, i.e., unique identification. The reader
communicates with multiple tags by the principle of
handshakes. By applying request and response commands,
the reader selects the desired tag from a large group. This
protocol requests the precise bit position of a data collision.

Serial number of the tags used in this example


Tag identification
Tag 1
Tag 2
Tag 3
Tag 4

Table 2
Commands
Request

G=

2013

Select

Read-data
Unselect

Serial number
1010 0111
1011 0101
1010 1111
1011 1101

Tags commands for the search protocol

Descriptions
This command sends a serial number to the tags as a
parameter. If the tags own serial number is less than or
equal to the received serial number, then the tag sends its
own serial number back to the reader.
Sends a serial number to the tag as a parameter. The tag
with the identical tag address will become available for the
processing of other commands, e.g., reading and writing
data. Thus, this tag is selected. Tags with different
addresses will thereafter only respond to a request
command.
The selected tag sends stored data to the reader.
The selection of a previously selected tag is cancelled
and the tag is muted. In this case, the tag is completely
inactive and does not even respond to a request command.

The tree-based anti-collision protocol can be divided


into following four steps:
Step 1 The reader sends the command request
(1111 1111) to all the tags in the interrogation zone of the
reader. Because the serial number of all tags in the
interrogation zone must therefore be less than or equal to
1111 1111, this command is responded to by all tags in the
interrogation zone of the reader. According to the principle
of Manchester coding, the decoded data is 101X4 X31X11.
That is to say, the data collisions occur on the bit positions
of X1, X3 and X4. Then the parameter 1010 1111, which is
applied to the next request command, can be obtained by
setting the collision bit X4 on the highest position as zero
and setting the bits whose positions are lower than that of
X4 as 1.
Step 2 The reader sends the command request
(1010 1111) to all the tags in the interrogation zone of the
reader. This command request is responded to by Tag 1
and Tag 3. The decoded data is 1010 X3111 and the data
collisions occur on the bit positions of X3. The protocol
sets X3 as zero and sets X0, X1 and X2 as 1. It then gets the
parameter 1010 0111 for next request command.

Issue 2

ZHENG Jia-li, et al. / Tree-based backoff protocol for fast RFID tag identification

Step 3 The reader sends the command request


(1010 0111) to all the tags in the interrogation zone of the
reader. In this step, only Tag 1 responds to this command
request and therefore, no collision occurs. After
implementing the data reading of Tag 1, the reader
transmits the command unselect to Tag 1 and makes it
muted.
Step 4 The protocol iterates the three steps above until
all the tags in the interrogation zone of the reader are
identified.
The whole procedure of tag identification in example
can be referred to the Table 3.
Table 3

Procedure of the tree-based anti-collision protocol

Command request
1111 1111

1010 1111
1010 0111
1111 1111
1010 1111
1111 1111
1011 0111
1111 1111

Responded tags
Tag 1: 1010 0111
Tag 2: 1011 0101
Tag 3: 1010 1111
Tag 4: 1011 1101
Tag 1: 1010 0111
Tag 3: 1010 1111
Tag 1: 1010 0111
Tag 2: 1011 0101
Tag 3: 1010 1111
Tag 4: 1011 1101
Tag 3:1010 1111
Tag 2:1011 0101
Tag 4: 1011 1101
Tag 2:1011 0101
Tag 4: 1011 1101

Identified tags
None

None
Tag 1
None
Tag 3
None
Tag 2
Tag 4

From Table 3, we can clearly observe that the traditional


tree-based protocol needs (lb N + 1) iterations to detect a
tag from the group of N tags. If only a single tag is located
in the interrogation zone of the reader, precisely one
iteration is required to detect the serial number of the tags,
i.e., a collision does not occur in this case. If there is more
than one tag in the interrogation zone of the reader, then
the average number of iterations increases quickly.

4 Tree-based backoff protocols


As described above, when the number of the tags in the
interrogation zone increases, more iterations need to be
processed in the tree-based protocol. Enhanced computing
costs caused by increasing iterations are a big obstacle for
the implementation of the tree-based protocol. To
overcome this problem, in this paper we propose a
tree-based backoff protocol. The proposed protocol is an
improvement on the traditional tree-based protocol. By
employing the backoff mechanism, the proposed protocol
can efficiently reduce the number of the iterations and thus,
reduce computational complexity.
In contrast to the traditional tree-based protocol, the

39

proposed protocol backtracks to the parent node of the


current node rather than the root node of the tree and sends
the request again, once the reader identifies a tag in the
interrogation zone. The whole procedure of the proposed
protocol can be divided into five steps:
Step 1 The reader sends the command request
(1111 1111) to all the tags in the interrogation zone of the
reader.
Step 2 Detect whether there is collision, if yes, locate
the highest bit position of the collision.
Step 3 Set the bit located in the highest bit position of
the collision to zero and those located in lower bit
positions to 1.
Step 4 Iterate Step 3 until the reader identifies a tag and
gets the next request parameter from the parent node of the
current node by using the backoff mechanism.
Step 5 Repeat Step 4 until all the tags are identified.
To compare the mechanism of the proposed protocol
with the traditional tree-based protocol, this paper further
describes the proposed protocol in detail integrated with
the example illustrated in Table 1 as following steps.
Step 1~Step 3 Same as the first three steps mentioned
in the example in Sect 3.
Step 4 The reader sends the command request
(1010 1111) to the undetected tags in the interrogation
zone of the reader and Tag 3 responds the request. The
reader communicates with Tag 3 and then mutes it. The
proposed protocol obtains the next request parameter
1111 1111 by returning to the parent node of the current
node.
Step 5 The reader sends the command request
(1111 1111) and Tag 2 and Tag 4 respond to the request.
The decoded data is 1011 X3101. According to the
principle of the anti-collision protocol, the bit X3, which is
located in the highest bit position of the collision, is set to
zero and the bits whose positions are lower than that of X3
are set to 1. Then we obtain the next request parameter
1011 0111.
Step 6 The reader sends the command request
(1011 0111) and only Tag 2 responds to this request. Mute
Tag 2 after communicating with it and return to the parent
node of the current node to get the next request parameter
1111 1111.
Step 7 The reader sends the command request
(1111 1111) and only Tag 4 responds to the request. The
proposed protocol closes the process because all the tags
are identified.

40

The Journal of China Universities of Posts and Telecommunications

Table 7 Experimental conditions

The whole procedure of tag identification in the


example can be referred to in Table 4. Compared with the
traditional tree-based protocol that needs N (lb N + 1)
iterations to identify N tags, the proposed protocol only
needs (2 N 1) iterations. Further details about the
computational complexity and performance of the
proposed protocol will be discussed in the next section.
Table 4 Procedure of the TBB protocol
Command request

Responded tags

Identified tags

Tag 1: 1010 0111


Tag 2: 1011 0101

1111 1111

None

Tag 3: 1010 1111


Tag 4: 1011 1101
Tag 1: 1010 0111

1010 1111

Tag 3: 1010 1111

1010 0111

Tag 1: 1010 0111

Tag 1

1010 1111

Tag 3: 1010 1111

Tag 3

Tag 2:1011 0101

1111 1111

None

Tag 4: 1011 1101

None

1011 0111

Tag 2:1011 0101

Tag 2

1111 1111

Tag 4: 1011 1101

Tag 4

Simulated results

2013

Parameter

Value

Experimental area

30 m30 m

Number of readers
Identification range of the reader
Number of tags
Tag ID
Maximum meter per frame

1
3m
160
Random selected 48-bit ID
1 m/frame

As Fig. 2(a) shows, in the scenario of tags without


mobility, when using the proposed TBB protocol to finish
identifying all the tags in the interrogation zone, the number
of iterations for identifying tag is less than the traditional
tree-based protocol by 72.3%. This proves that the proposed
technique incurs less computing cost than the traditional
method, while maintaining the accuracy of identification.
Fig. 2(b) illustrates how the TBB protocol efficiently
reduces the identification delay. It can be observed that the
proposed technique speeds up the identification by 58.6%
compared with the traditional tree-based protocol. In the
scenario of 50% tags with mobility, as shown in Fig. 3, the
performance of the TBB protocol also surpasses that of the
traditional tree-based protocol. The experimental results
prove that the proposed TBB protocol also works efficiently
in the case of tags with mobility.

We evaluate the performance of the TBB protocol


compared with the traditional tree-based protocol. To
measure the efficiency of tag identification in these two
protocols, we consider the following aspects illustrated in
Table 5.
Table 5 Measure indicators for the performance of the protocols
Measure indicators

Descriptions

Number
of iteration

Computational complexity of the tree-based


anti-collision protocol mostly depends on the
number of iterations.

Identification
delay

Measure the total delay for recognising all tags in


the interrogation zone of the reader. Fast
identification is the most significant factor in the
tree-based anti-collision protocols.

(a) Average number of iterations for identifying tags

In practice, it is very likely that tags frequently enter


or leave the interrogation zone of the reader. To
comprehensively evaluate the performance of the protocol,
we set up the scenarios for tags mobility as shown in Table 6.
Other experimental conditions are presented in Table 7.
Table 6 Simulated Scenarios in the experimentation
Scenarios

Percentage of the tag mobility/(%)

Scenario A

Scenario B

50

(b) Average identification delay for growing number of tags


Fig. 2 Scenario A: tags without mobility

Issue 2

ZHENG Jia-li, et al. / Tree-based backoff protocol for fast RFID tag identification

41

identification in an RFID system is achieved.


Acknowledgements
This

work

was

supported

by

the

National

Natural

Science Foundation of China (61261023), the Guangxi Natural


Science Foundation (2012GXNSFBA053160, 2011GXNSFA018169,
2011GXNSFD018024), the Guangxi Education Department Science
Foundation (201010LX016), and the Guangxi Science Research and
Technology Development Program (12118017-9A).
(a) Average number of iterations for identifying tags

References

(b) Average identification delay for growing number of tags


Fig. 3 Scenario B: 50% tags with mobility

6 Conclusions
In this work, we propose a new tag collision arbitration
protocol-tree-based backoff (TBB) protocol, which
combines the tree-based protocol with a backoff
mechanism. By obtaining the request parameters from the
parent node instead of root node when a tag of the current
node is identified, the TBB protocol can significantly
reduce the number of iterations that are implemented to
detect all tags in the interrogation zone. Because the TBB
protocol requires less computational complexity than that
of the traditional tree-based protocol, tag identification
delays are reduced greatly and the goal of fast

1. Eom J B, Yim S B, Lee T J. An efficient reader anticollision algorithm in


dense RFID networks with mobile RFID readers. IEEE Transctions on
Industrial Electronics, 2009, 56(7): 23262336
2. Laporta T F, Maselli G, Petrioli C. Anticollision protocols for single-reader
RFID systems: temporal analysis and optimization. IEEE Transactions on
Mobile Computing, 2011, 10(2): 267279
3. Bletsas A, Siachalou S, Sahalos J N. Anti-collision backscatter sensor
networks. IEEE Transctions on Wireless Communications, 2009, 8(10):
50185029
4. Park J, Lee T J. Error resilient estimation and adaptive binary selection for
fast and reliable identification of RFID tags in error-prone channel. IEEE
Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2012, 11(6): 959969
5. Konstantinou N. Expowave: an RFID anti-collision algorithm for dense and
lively environments. IEEE Transactions on Communications, 2012, 60(2):
352356
6. Maguire Y, Pappu R. An optimal Q-algorithm for the ISO 18000-6C RFID
protocol. IEEE Transctions on Automation Science and Engineering, 2009,
6(1): 1624
7. Wang Y Q, Jiang G P, Wang J. Framed slotted ALOHA with grouping
tactic and binary selection for anti-collision in RFID systems. The Journal of
China Universities of Posts and Telecommunications, 2009, 16 (4): 4752
8. Yang C N, He J Y. An effective 16-bit random number aided query tree
algorithm for RFID tag anti-collision. IEEE Communications Letters, 2011,
15(5): 539541
9. Klair D K, Chin K W, Raad R. A survey and tutorial of RFID anti-collision
protocols. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 2010, 12(3):
400421
10. Plessky V P. Review on SAW RFID tags. IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics,
Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, 2009, 57(3): 1423

(Editor: WANG Xu-ying)

You might also like