IWRT 2011 - IWRT 2011 : The Fifth International Workshop on RFID Technology - Concepts, Applications, Challenges

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems are emerging as one of the most pervasive computing technologies due to their low cost and their broad applicability. RFID systems consist of tiny integrated circuits equipped with antennas (RFID tags) that communicate with their reading devices (RFID readers) using radio-frequency waves without line of sight. This creates tremendous opportunities for linking various objects from real world. These objects are numbered, identified, cataloged, and tracked. RFID systems present many advantages and features that cannot be found in other ubiquitous computing environments. RFID communication is fast, convenient and its application can substantially save time, improve services, reduce labor cost, thwart product counterfeiting and theft, increase productivity gains and maintain quality standards. Common applications range from highway toll collection, supply chain management, public transportation,controlling building access, animal tracking, developing smart home appliances and remote keyless entry for automobiles to locating children. In addition, RFID technology also offers a viable approach to implement physical user interfaces. The services available in the local environment are advertised by RFID tags. Users browse the services and activate the desired service by simply touching the corresponding tag with a mobile terminal that is equipped with an RFID reader. In the near future, these user interfaces would introduce RFID tags into our everyday lives.

While RFID provides promising benefits such as inventory visibility and business process automation, some significant challenges need to be overcome before these benefits can be realized. One important issue is how to process and manage RFID data, which is typically in large volume, noisy and unreliable, time-dependent, dynamically changing, and of varying ownership. Another issue is how to seamlessly integrate low-level RFID data into (existing) enterprise information infrastructures (e.g., upper-level business processes). Finally, RFID systems present a number of inherent vulnerabilities with serious potential security implications. Indeed, given the ability of inexpensively tagging and thus monitoring a large number of items and/or people, RFID raises some serious security and privacy concerns. RFID systems are vulnerable to a broad range of malicious attacks ranging from passive eavesdropping to active interference. RFID privacy and security are stimulating research areas that involve rich interplay among many disciplines, such as signal processing, hardware design, supply-chain logistics, privacy rights, and cryptography.

The workshop's objective is to provide a forum for researchers, practitioners, and users to exchange new ideas, developments, and experience on issues related to this emerging field.