R.E.S.T. — A flexible, semi-passive platform for developing RFID technologies

The Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID)-Enabled Sensing Testbed (R.E.S.T.) is a flexible platform for developing RFID technologies (sensors, RF front ends, coding, etc.) across frequency bands from low-frequency through microwave and millimeter. Paired with a USRP N-200 software defined radio, the R.E.S.T. allows researchers to streamline RFID product development or experiment with new sensing techniques/RF architectures without the need for rebuilding an entire RFID tag. Instead, interchangeable daughterboards can be swapped with minimal code modification. This paper will present an overview of the R.E.S.T. platform; its usefulness as a research, teaching, and development tool; and some sample applications which have used the R.E.S.T. platform to date, including the development of a 5.8 GHz RFID backscatter radio system.