A distributed multi-channel reader anti-collision algorithm for RFID environments

In Radio Frequency Identification environments, several readers might be placed in the same area to scan a large number of tags covering a wide distance range. The placement of the RFID elements may result in several types of collisions. This paper proposes a multi-channel algorithm to solve the reader collision problems in a sense or sparse RFID environment. We adapt a distributed approach that avoids the need of costly extra hardware for centralized control. In addition, the proposed approach does not require global synchronization in the RFID network. It introduces a multi-channel notification protocol to make RFID readers aware of the network resources utilization. We have evaluated the performance of the proposed approach using NS3 and compared it to several anti-collision solutions such as NFRA, Dica and McMac. Results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the time needed for tags' identification, thus increasing the rate of successful interrogations while minimizing the network overhead.