A beacon analysis-based RFID reader anti-collision protocol for dense reader environments

Abstract

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is one of the major technologies for auto-identification in many applications. When multiple readers work together to improve the read rate and reliability, a dense RFID network is created. One of the most important issues to be considered in such environments is reader collision, which leads to reduced throughput. Although different schemes have been proposed to reduce reader collision, they often either require additional hardware or do not use network resources efficiently, or are not consistent with international laws and standards. In this paper, by managing and analyzing beacon messages, a new centralized scheme, which is consistent with European standards and laws, is proposed to reduce collisions and increase throughput. In the proposed scheme, by sending a priority code via a beacon message and making decisions based on the beacon messages received by readers, the available resources are used optimally, and the maximum number of readers is activated in one round. Additionally, in the proposed scheme, the priority code is initialized in such a manner that the readers access the channel fairly. The simulation results and comparison of the proposed scheme with other protocols indicate that throughput increased. Because of the increased throughput and fairness of the proposed scheme, the delay reduced compared with other schemes, and overall, the proposed scheme was superior to other centralized schemes.