Interoperability Verification in ISO 18000-7 Active RFID Systems: Experimental Setup and Results

Abstract

Interoperability in an RFID system conforming to ISO 18000-7 standard is defined as the ability of any commercial interrogator to communicate with any commercial tag. A possibility that conformance verification in the physical communication layer between active tags and interrogators (readers) does not satisfy the interoperability property is established. Challenging the traditional or matrix test to verify interoperability, a novel methodology to verify interoperability for active RFID systems in particular and all communication systems following a command-reply protocol in general is introduced in a prior publication. In this article, the methodology is experimentally implemented using industry standard laboratory equipment and automation tools to develop a fully automated interoperability test suite. The automated test system design considerations, challenges and results are discussed in detail. For a particular equipment, the NI-5671 Radio Frequency Signal generator, the maximum number of samples that can be tested for different parameters of the physical communication layers are provided. The equipment limitations are discussed to provide the reader with guidelines to experiment with, and a reference to evaluate the resolution (one measure of the accuracy of the test) of different equipment. The different parameters considered in the test and their interactions in determining the interoperability property are recorded.