Multi-hop based collection utilizing ZigBee networks for a large-scale active RFID deployment

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is an automatic identification technology where information is carried by radio waves. The active type of RFID focuses on a long communication range while the passive type focuses on a low cost for a number of dense deployments. Nevertheless, the active type cannot be applied to a large-scale area due to its limited radio communication. This paper proposes a multi-hop based collection utilizing ZigBee networks for a large-scale active RFID deployment. The proposed method uses a collection agent on ZigBee networks to extend the coverage of the RFID reader and collect RFID tags outside its communication range. This paper also includes an experiment and a performance evaluation. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, we implemented an RFID system, which complies with a standard of 433MHz active RFIDs based on ISO/IEC 18000-7.