RFID (radio frequency identification) tags are becoming ubiquitously
available in object tracking, access control, and toll payment. The
current application model treats tags simply as ID carriers and deals
with each tag individually for the purpose of identifying the object
that the tag is attached to. The uniqueness of RFID as an
Infrastructure is to change the traditional individual view to a
collective view that treats universally-deployed tags as a new
infrastructure, a new wireless platform on which novel applications can
be developed.
The book begins with an introduction to the problems of tag estimation
and information collection from RFID systems, and explains the
challenges. It discusses how to efficiently estimate the number of tags
in a large RFID system, considering both energy cost and execution time.
It then gives a detailed account on how to collect information from a
sensor-augmented RFID network with new designs that significantly reduce
execution time.