Design of the Electronic Tags in a Container RFID System

This paper presents a case study to apply the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology to dynamically track miscellaneous logistics information of the shipping containers to improve the container transportation management and digitalization level. The system architecture and configuration of the RFID system are illustrated and the requirements of the container RFID system are characterized. The hardware circuit of the electronic tags in an active RFID system is designed. The tags designed are of small volume and low power consumption with an identification sensitive distance up to 20m. The anti-collision mechanism for the electronic tags is discussed and an adaptive anti-collision algorithm based on the slotted ALOHA algorithm is proposed. The proposed algorithm proves that it is effective to improve the message channel utilization rate and the tag identification rate.