RFID Tag Reader Designs for Retail Store Applications

摘要

Current RFID tag readers do not do much more than reading the tags and transmitting that information to a central server forprocessing. This places a heavy burden on the central server to keep track of all the incoming data from the reader when itcan be spending its time more gainfully on other tasks. We propose building some intelligence into RFID tag readers so thatthey can process some of the data themselves and reduce the load on the central server. We discuss the technical details ofbuilding this intelligence in the four key functions of tag readers: (A) Automatic initialization of the tag readers, (B)Automatic identification of misplaced items, ? Automatic generation of shelf replenishment alerts, and (D) Automaticgeneration of reorder alerts. In addition, we discuss possible network designs for interconnecting the tag readers and thecentral transaction server at the retail store. We provide a database model for storing transactions generated by RFID tagreads. We discuss how the current enterprise architectures can be modified to accommodate RFID transactions.