Abstract—Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an emerging

technology which has wide range of applications. This technology

has helped to accelerate various processes in different industries,

without the requirement of line of sight compared to the traditional

bar-code technology. The latest technological developments in

various industries have open new avenues to many new applications

of RFID, should drive excellent growth through the end of this

decade and beyond. This paper introduces the principles of RFID,

and reviews the emerging applications of RFID.

Keywords—RFID, Tag, Antenna, on-chip antennas.

I. INTRODUCTION

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID is a quickly growing

technology which place an important role in identification

such as health care, aviation industry, library shelf

management, supply chain management, vehicle identification

and weapon management[1-4]. Main vendor chains such as

Wal-Mart and Target have mandated that all suppliers

introduce RFID[5]. RFID is a term use in systems which

transmit the ID of a particular object through wireless

technology.

There are many advantages in RFID compared to bar code

technology. One of the advantages is that the reader can read

or write tags data without the line of sight. In addition the

information of a tag can be rewritten, but it is unchangeable in

the bar code system. Also the RFID reader has the ability to

read multiple RFID tags simultaneously[6]. Compared to

barcodes, RFID tags are applicable in insensitive

environments, such as outdoors, higher temperatures and

around chemicals [7-9].

In 1948 RFID work was published initially in a paper

“Communication by Means of Reflected Power” by Harry

Stockman. The progress of RFID was initiated in 1960s. The

first US patent for an active RFID tag with rewriteable

memory was received by Mario W. Cardullo in January 23,

1973[10, 11]. The major development of RFID came in 1970s

and early 1980s. After this major expansion, researchers,

developers and academic institutions including Los Alamos

Scientific Laboratory and the Swedish Microwave Institute

Foundation showed a greater extent of interest to RFID

technology[12]. In this paper Section II & III present the RFID

Dr.Praharshin M. Senadeera1 is attached to the Department of Electrical

and Electronics Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

author’s e-mail: pmelaka@gmail.com Professor Numan S. Dogan2 is attached to the Department of Electrical

Engineering, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University,

Greensboro, NC 27411 USA

system, RFID frequencies and emerging technologies and

trends in RFID. Finally Section IV presents the conclusion.

II. RFID SYSTEM

Typical RFID system is made of three major components:

RF tag[13], RF antenna[14], and a RF reader. The functionality

of the system is as follows. Initially, a signal of radiation is

emitted from the RF antenna. The signal will be identified by

a tag located in its coverage area. Then the tag’s internal chip

retransmits a signal to the antenna[15]

A. Tag

The tag is also recognized as the transponder. The tag sends

the unique ID and data to the reader for processing when the

tag is interrogated by the reader. An integrated circuit (IC) is a

common component in most of the tags [8]. Fig.1 shows a

block diagram of a passive RFID tag.

Fig.1 Block diagram of a passive RFID tag

B. Antenna

The last component to integrate is the antenna in the RFID

tag to develop a completely integrated single-chip wireless

system. Antenna provides a way of communication and energy

to correspond with the tag. It is very important for the

communication of data between the reader and the tag. Block

diagram of an Antenna is given in Fig.2.

Emerging Applications in RFID Technology

Praharshin M. Senadeera1, and Numan S. Dogan

2

International Journal of Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (IJCSEE) Volume 4, Issue 2 (2016) ISSN 2320–4028 (Online)

75

Fig.2 Microphotograph of the RF-DC Rectifier with on-chip slot

antenna[15]

C. Reader

RFID reader can write and read data in the RFID tag. The

reader is also referred to as the interrogator. Another

responsibility of the reader is to communicate with the host

computer [17].

Electromagnetic energy is used as a medium for sending

information in RFID technology. The two main elements of

RFID system is the reader and the tag. These are connected to

a host computer which controls the reader. The basic theory is

that the reader retrieves data over the air from the RFID tag.

[9]

The fundamental operation of RFID system the data transfer

between a reader and a tag is shown in Fig.3.

Fig.3 RFID system operation[16]

The reader and the tag communication mainly depend on

the application requirements such as the cost, size, speed,

accuracy and the read range. One of the important parameters

in an operation of the RFID tag is the operation frequency

between the reader and the tag. This frequency selection

depends on the relevant application requirement such as

speed, accuracy, environmental situations, and specific

applications standards and regulations [16].

Depending on powering techniques, RFID tags can be

divided into two categories, passive or active. Since the

passive tag do not have a battery it can communicate with the

reader when sitting in an electromagnetic field only. However

the active RFID tags consisting of a battery can power the

integrated circuits and transmit the response signal to the

reader.[6]

Brief explanation of types of RFID tag is given below.

Active tags (battery-powered), semi-active tags, semi-passive

tags (battery-assisted), and passive tags (battery-free)[4].

I. Active tag

A battery is essential for an active tag for its operation. It

can supply power to sensor enabled RFID systems and

supports longer communication distance because they have a

dedicated power supply. Since these tags have an in-built

battery they can respond to a weaker signal from the RFID

reader. The main disadvantages of active tags are the short

battery life, large volume, and high cost [9]. The range of

active tag is of 300 meter from the reader.

II. Semi-active tag

The semi active tag consists of a small battery helps to keep

the microchip alert to make a tag response quickly. The power

supply to the semi-active tag is done by an internal battery

which enables to operate the circuit of the microchip and to

transmit a signal to the reader.

III. Semi-passive tag

The main difference between the Battery Assisted Passive

(BAP) or the semi-passive tag and the passive tag is the BAP

is able to provide a larger reading range and readability. The

circuit of the microchip in the BAP tag powered by the battery

reflects the radio waves generated by the reader whereas a

passive tag uses some of the readers signal to power its

microchip. The BAP tag reflects back more of the reader’s

radio waves.

IV. Passive tag

RFID reader is responsible to power the passive tag. The

advantage of the passive tag is that they can be manufactured

at a very low cost than the battery powered tags because they

do not require a battery. When the passive tag is within the

radio frequency field, it’s power is supplied by the

electromagnetic waves sent by the reader. The microchip can

send back the information on the same wave when the power

of the microchip meets the minimum voltage. The battery is

not required for Passive tags to communicate with the reader

because they use the transmitted power from the reader. The

range of passive tag is about one meter.

III. RFID FREQUENCIES

Operating frequency of the reader and the tag is a very

important aspect of an RFID system. Operating frequency

defines the rate of data between the tag and the reader.

Lower operating frequency usually means slower data rate.

Operating frequency also determines the tag size in addition to

the data rate. As an example high operating frequency means

smaller antenna and tag size. RFID operating frequencies

mainly divided into three categories. They are namely, low

frequency(LF), frequencies less than 125KHz, high

frequency(HF), frequencies less than 13.56MHz, and ultra-

high frequency(UHF), frequencies less than 900MHz)[16].

A. Emerging Technologies and Trends

The RFID users seek diverse characteristics of tags

depending on their application especially cheaper tags than the

existing ones and interoperability between systems.

RFID manufacturers tend to create products to fulfill the

demands of consumers. Identification systems for the medical

aviation, railway and shipping industry, animal identification,

timing of sporting events, control of highway toll collection,

International Journal of Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (IJCSEE) Volume 4, Issue 2 (2016) ISSN 2320–4028 (Online)

76

smart cards, vehicle identification, electronic shelf

management in libraries, control of production lines, and food

safety are some of the new developments that use RFID

technology today.

Health care and Pharmaceutical industry

Improve patient safety and decrease operational costs due to

human errors are the main challenges hospitals are facing

today. The deaths are between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths per

year according to the estimation of The Institute of Medicine

(IOM) and urgent need to improve the patient safety in U.S.

hospitals[6].

One of the critical parts in healthcare is the Identification.

It has a significant role such as patient identification, medicine

identification, and different kind of devices, materials,

equipment, objects and instruments need to be identified as

well. Registration, tracking and monitoring are among many

targets in healthcare that need identification. Identification

errors in patients or drugs can lead to deadly accidents due to

manual handling procedures. Therefore it is crucial to

implement RFID technology in vital healthcare procedures

[18].

The patients have a wide variety of benefits through RFID

technology because it can provide computerized in home care

and improved procedures. It can also improve the hospital

procedures that are currently carried out manually. Some of

these procedures include advanced automatic databases and

guide pathways.

RFID tags bring important benefits for the patients with

special needs. It can be used to guide blind or visually

impaired patients to protect them from accidents. RFID

technology can be used effectively to alert emergencies during

surgical procedures and blood transfusion.

RFID technology in management of Severe Acute

Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) affected patients was tested in

a hospital in Taiwan. They used the technology to locate and

monitor such patients. When a new SARS infection occurred

the Location based Medicare Service System (LBMS) also

raised an alarm. Therefore the RFID technology plays an

important role in healthcare industry to assure the safety of

patients [18].

Aviation industry

The aviation industry has been searching advanced methods

for accurate baggage handling than the existing methods since

1999. The read accuracies of RFID tags are about 98 percent

compared to 85 percent in barcode baggage tags[19].

One of the most important industries that need

implementation of emerging RFID technology is the Aviation

industry. Boeing and Airbus are looking for implementing

RFID technology on commercial aircraft parts. RFID could

provide major benefits for the entire aviation industry.

The traditional methods that airlines use to identify baggage

are tags with a bar code, and baggage tags or stickers with a

corresponding ticket issued to the passenger. At present the

aviation industry uses RF reader and RF encoded baggage tags

that are either attached to or made a central part of a passenger

bag compared to the bar coded tickets.

RFID transponders are capable of tolerating rough

environmental conditions in an airport and help in remote

management of bag tags [7].

Personal asset tracking

One of the emerging applications of RFID is tracking of

personal belongings such as bags, keys, wallets, passports,

jewelry, wrist watches, sunglasses, books, medicine, portable

flash drives, mobile phones, PDAs, laptops, Ipads, mp3

players, calculators, etc. RFID tag can be attached to all these

items separately. The owner can carry the reader which

communicates with the tag attached to each personal item.

The owner will be notified, when any of these items is out of

range of the RFID reader [20].

This system will help people to secure their belongings. It

will also help the owner to locate his/her items in the event of

misplace or theft. The time stamp can provide the information

of the lost item to the owner such as when the object was

detected to be missing. The advantage of this personal

identification system is that owner can finds the lost item right

away if he/she realizes the alert immediately. On the other

hand if the owner realizes the alert at a later time he/she has

the facility to backtrack it.

Smart cards

People identification and travel documents are the newest

approaches of RFID technology. The disadvantages of this

approach are the problems associated with privacy and

security. The development of electronic passports, licenses

and identification cards using the IC technology facilitate

ample storage space, and computational power[21].

Library shelf management

Library management system helps to track items in a library

where there are large number of books, CD’s and others. It

also helps to track new orders, bill paid and clients who have

borrowed. This system is very important to a library to

maintain a good coordination of all the details of items for

better management of the library. The arrangement of the

books on the shelves should be in order otherwise it will hard

for the user to find require books.

RFID tag containing specific information can be attached to

each and every book in a library. This system allows the

reader to interrogate each book and notice the location of the

book to the user. It will help to locate misplaced books [22].

Supply chain management

Traditionally RFID systems are used in supply chain

management where it is able to track and trace the product

location at different points in the chain. When RFID tags are

attached to products, they provide continuous tracking

information throughout the supply chain. These capabilities of

International Journal of Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (IJCSEE) Volume 4, Issue 2 (2016) ISSN 2320–4028 (Online)

77

RFID tags makes them much more popular candidates in

supply chain management[23].

Food safety

RFID technology can be used in diverse sectors in food

industry including processing, storage and distribution. It also

can be used to identify physical contamination of food items.

This wireless sensor network technology coupled with RFID

can be used to develop new RFID sensors which can be used

in various food industries [8].

Transportation

Primarily RFID tags are used to increase the number of

transactions both in private and public sectors. Plastic cards

embedded with RFID tags are used to replace the paper

tickets. When a passenger enters a train, bus or a metro they

are checked because their cards have a passive rewritable chip.

Most of these cards have passive and partly rewritable

chips[23]. At present in transportation industry RFID is used

for electronic vehicle registration and identification, electronic

toll collection and car parking etc.

Vehicle identification

One of the emerging applications of RFID is the

implementation of RFID System on Roads (RSR). It supports

the future smart vehicles. RSR consists of RFID tags, RFID

readers, Information Processing Units (IPU), and Information

Sharing Units (ISU). RFID tags are contributed on road

surfaces, and RFID readers are installed at vehicles. These

smart vehicles obtain the information from implanted sensors

and RFID tags, which will be processed by IPU and then

broadcast to the other vehicles[24].

Weapon management

For the management of weapons UHF band of RFID can be

used. This reduces the wrong identification of the gun and

minimizes the cost of registering and evaluating the use of a

weapon and most significantly identifying a handgun without

the line of sight[25].

IV. CONCLUSION

RFID technology is used in many industries such as

medical, aviation, library shelf management, vehicle, animal,

and personnel identification and weapon management. It is

essential to improve research and development and implement

RFID applications in fast growing markets. Limitations of

current RFID tags should be identified in order to improve the

technology and to fulfill the future expectations and

challenges. This includes a development of new low cost

smaller tags with on-chip antennas with small form factors.

These new improvements will enable using RFID technology

in emerging areas such as insect tracking. The realization of

on-chip antennas on a single chip will improve the operating

frequency of RFID tags to microwave and mm-wave ISM

bands. Packaging and assembly costs will be reduced by

developing single chip RFID tags resulting in small form

factors. To meet the current demands of the emerging

industries, the future research should direct towards

developing and implementing low cost, smaller size and

higher performance RFID tags.

REFERENCES

[1] Y. Yao, J. Wu, Y. Shi, and F. F. Dai, "A Fully integrated 900-MHz

passive RFID transponder front end with novel zero-threshold RF–DC rectifier," Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 56, pp.

2317-2325, 2009.

[2] S. Han, H. Lim, and J. Lee, "An efficient localization scheme for a differential-driving mobile robot based on RFID system," Industrial

Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 54, pp. 3362-3369, 2007.

[3] T. Umeda, H. Yoshida, S. Sekine, Y. Fujita, T. Suzuki, and S. Otaka,

"A 950-MHz rectifier circuit for sensor network tags with 10-m

distance," Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of, vol. 41, pp. 35-41,

2006. [4] R. E. Floyd, "RFID: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow," Potentials, IEEE,

vol. 31, pp. 11-46, 2012.

[5] Y. Zuo, "Survivable RFID systems: Issues, challenges, and techniques," Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C: Applications and Reviews,

IEEE Transactions on, vol. 40, pp. 406-418, 2010.

[6] W. Yao, C.-H. Chu, and Z. Li, "The use of RFID in healthcare: Benefits and barriers," in RFID-Technology and Applications (RFID-TA), 2010

IEEE International Conference on, 2010, pp. 128-134.

[7] A. Cerino and W. P. Walsh, "Research and application of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to enhance aviation

security," in National Aerospace and Electronics Conference, 2000.

NAECON 2000. Proceedings of the IEEE 2000, 2000, pp. 127-135. [8] M. Saravanan, J. K. Singh, and N. Thirumoorthy, "RFID sensors for

food safety centre by identifying the physical factors that affecting the

food," in Information Communication and Embedded Systems (ICICES), 2014 International Conference on, 2014, pp. 1-6.

[9] J. R. Tuttle, "Traditional and emerging technologies and applications in

the radio frequency identification (RFID) industry," in Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium, 1997., IEEE, 1997, pp. 5-8.

[10] J. Landt, "The history of RFID," Potentials, IEEE, vol. 24, pp. 8-11,

2005. [11] R. Want, "An introduction to RFID technology," Pervasive Computing,

IEEE, vol. 5, pp. 25-33, 2006.

[12] C. M. Roberts, "Radio frequency identification (RFID)," Computers & Security, vol. 25, pp. 18-26, 2006.

[13] P. M. Senadeera, N. S. Dogan, Z. Xie, and I. Kateeb, "Low power X-

band passive RFID tag design in 0.18µm CMOS," in SoutheastCon 2015, 2015, pp. 1-5.

[14] P. M. Senadeera, H. Savci, Z. Xie, and N. S. Dogan, "Integrated Antenna Design for Passive X-band RFID Transponder," 28th Annual

Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics, pp.

686-689, 2012. [15] P. M. Senadeera, J. Griggs, Z. Xie, N. S. Dogan, M. Li, N. Behdad, et

al., "X-band energy harvester with miniaturized on-chip slot antenna

implemented in 0.18-μm RF CMOS," in Ultra-Wideband (ICUWB), 2012 IEEE International Conference on, 2012, pp. 448-452.

[16] P. M. Senadeera, N. S. Dogan, Z. Xie, H. S. Savci, I. Kateeb, and M.

Ketel, "Recent trends in RFID transponders," in Southeastcon, 2013 Proceedings of IEEE, 2013, pp. 1-5.

[17] K. S. Leong, M. L. Ng, A. R. Grasso, and P. H. Cole, "Synchronization

of RFID readers for dense RFID reader environments," in Applications and the Internet Workshops, 2006. SAINT Workshops 2006.

International Symposium on, 2006, pp. 4 pp.-51.

[18] A. Lahtela, "A short overview of the RFID technology in healthcare," in Systems and Networks Communications, 2009. ICSNC'09. Fourth

International Conference on, 2009, pp. 165-169.

[19] Y. S. Chang, C. H. Oh, Y. S. Whang, J. J. Lee, J. Kwon, M. S. Kang, et al., "Development of RFID enabled aircraft maintenance system," in

Industrial Informatics, 2006 IEEE International Conference on, 2006,

pp. 224-229.

International Journal of Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (IJCSEE) Volume 4, Issue 2 (2016) ISSN 2320–4028 (Online)

78

[20] S. Chan, A. Connell, E. Madrid, D. Park, and R. Kamoua, "RFID for

personal asset tracking," in Systems, Applications and Technology Conference, 2009. LISAT'09. IEEE Long Island, 2009, pp. 1-7.

[21] G. M. Ezovski and S. E. Watkins, "The electronic passport and the

future of government-issued RFID-based identification," in RFID, 2007. IEEE International Conference on, 2007, pp. 15-22.

[22] A. T. B. Abdullah, I. B. Ismail, A. B. Ibrahim, and M. Z. H. B. Noor,

"Library shelf management system using RFID technology," in System Engineering and Technology (ICSET), 2011 IEEE International

Conference on, 2011, pp. 215-218.

[23] M. M. Aung, Y. S. Chang, and J.-U. Won, "Emerging RFID/USN applications and challenges," International Journal of RFID Security

and Cryptography, vol. 1, pp. 3-8, 2012.

[24] W. Cheng, S. Wang, and X. Cheng, "Virtual track: applications and challenges of the RFID system on roads," Network, IEEE, vol. 28, pp.

42-47, 2014.

[25] F. Benes, J. Svub, and V. Kebo, "Application of the RFID technology in the field of gun management for the Police of the Czech Republic," in

Carpathian Control Conference (ICCC), 2012 13th International, 2012,

pp. 30-34.

Praharshin M. Senadeera (M’13) Melaka Senadeera was born in Kandy, Sri Lanka,

where he completed his elementary and

secondary education at Kingswood College, Kandy. This author became a

member (M) of IEEE in 2013. Melaka has received two Bachelor’s degrees in Sri

Lanka and USA of which the first one is in

Physical Science from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 1998 and the

second one is in Computer Science from

Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, USA, 2001. He earned his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from

Wright State University, USA in 2005.

Melaka worked as an Electrical Engineer in several companies in Sri Lanka and USA including Tandon Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Lanka and M2Micro,

USA. He has also worked as a Java/XML/XSL developer at Bearing Point,

Fairfax, Virginia, USA and at Perot Systems, Fairfax, Virginia, USA.

Currently he is working as a Senior lecturer in Department of Electrical and

Electronics, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

Dr. Melaka received several scholarly awards at North Carolina Agricutural and Techincal State University including the award for scholarly

accomplishment and academic excellence by the International Students and

Scholars Office (ISSO) consecutively from 2009 to 2012. He has been a recipient of the Wadaran L. Kennedy 4.0 Scholars award granted by the

School of Graduate Studies in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Melaka is a member of

Phi Kappa Phi honor Society. Melaka presented his findings in a number of national and international conferences. He has authored several scientific

papers which remain published in IEEE.

International Journal of Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (IJCSEE) Volume 4, Issue 2 (2016) ISSN 2320–4028 (Online)

79