Generating Business Events in an RFID network

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been promoted, as the solution to the identification and tracking of objects, without any means of wires or human intervention. RFID middleware is a prominent component of any non-trivial RFID deployment. EPCglobal has been actively working towards a set of middleware standards for large scale interoperable RFID deployments (such as the Electronic Product Code Application Level Events (EPC-ALE) and Information Sharing (EPCIS) standards), while several middleware projects have concentrated in the implementation of these standards. However, there is still a clear need for middleware modules that map low-level tag streams (e.g., stemming from EPC-ALE modules) to Business Events (e.g., events formulated according to the EPCIS standard). In this paper, we introduce a middleware module for bridging EPC-ALE reports with EPCIS repositories based on automated generation of business events subject to Master Data and context pertaining to a particular business case. We call the respective middleware module Business Event Generator (BEG). BEG is a configurable engine that can automatically create business events from a set of low-level tag streams. In addition to the BEG module, we introduce tools and techniques for configuring the BEG engine. We illustrate the use of the above middleware and tools based on a set of indicative use cases in the area of logistics and supply chain management.