Mobile RFID

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“Mobile RFID (M-RFID) can be defined as services that provide information on objects equipped with an RFID tag over a telecommunication network” ^[1]. The reader is installed in a mobile device such as a mobile phone or PDA. This completely new approach is different from current implementations of ordinary RFID: Now the readers are mobile and the tags are fixed, instead the other way around. M-RFID has some major and obvious advantages over RFID: No wires to fixed readers are needed anymore and several mobile readers are enough to cover a whole area, instead of dozens of fixed readers ^[2].

The basic components are always a reader and a tag. Mostly the reader is in some way attached to a back-end database which stores more information on the item to which the tag is attached to. The connection to the database is mostly made by the device which holds the reader and which is able to connect to a local (wireless) network and/or the Internet. Various players like the Near Field Communication Forum (NFC), European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and EPCglobal are involved in developing M-RFID solutions.

The main focus is on supporting supply chain management. But this application has also found its way in m-commerce. The customer in the supermarket can scan the Electronic Product Code from the tag and connects via the internet to get more information.

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