Global Standardization Activities

Recent Activities for RFID
Standardization
Mitsuo Tsukada†
Abstract
This article introduces recent activities concerning RFID (radio frequency identification) standardization, especially those in EPCglobal, which is the most influential standardization organization for RFIDrelated technology.

1. Background
RFID (radio frequency identification) is an automatic identification technology using wireless communication. Although it has been around since theWorld War II, it has recently attracted renewed attention as “networked” RFID, in which different users
exchange IDs and ID-related information over a network. The idea is to identify every individual object
by attaching a very cheap tag to it. Only the minimum
functions should be embedded in the tag itself andother necessary functions should be provided via the
network. A typical example of a “networked” RFID
system is “Auto-ID” proposed by the Auto-ID Center,
which was established by the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology (MIT) in 1999 [1]. The basic conceptof Auto-ID is shown in Fig. 1. An Electronic ProductCode (EPC), which is a unique ID, is stored in a tag
and assigned to each item. The Auto-ID Center had
been engaged in the development of the following
components of the Auto-ID system in order toachieve a smooth migration from bar codes, which
are currently used extensively for automatic identification.
• Middleware: handles the raw data read by a reader from the tag by wireless communication andpasses it to an application• ONS (object name service): resolves the locationof the database containing information about aspecific EPC

ReaderTag contains 1) ID
only unique ID
Tag
ID (EPC)
1) ID

Database(EPCIS)
5) Access todatabase

Internet

4) Location of
database

Middleware
2) ID + time3) ID

Resolver(ONS)

Application

Fig. 1. Basic concept of Auto-ID.
† NTT Service Integration Laboratories
Musashino-shi, 180-8585 Japan
E-mail: tsukada.mitsuo@lab.ntt.co.jp

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Global Standardization Activities• EPCIS (EPC information service): provides a
database for storing and managing information
about a specific EPC (event history and attributesof each item assigned to a specific EPC)
To enable tags, readers, and the ID-related information to be used by different users, we must standardize the interface between components, the data format, and the communication protocols.
2. EPCglobal
NTT joined the Auto-ID Center in August 2002.
More than 100 organizations around the world(including 11 Japanese companies) joined this activity as well. In addition, six laboratories were established (including MIT) and one of them was in Japan(at Keio University).
The Auto-ID Center concluded its research anddevelopment achievements in October 2003 andestablished EPCglobal [2] as the successor to thisactivity in November 2003. EPCglobal is a non-profit organization formed as a joint venture supported byboth EAN International (an international organization managing bar codes for the retail industry) andUCC (Uniform Code Council, a bar-code-managing
organization in the United States). The mission of
EPCglobal is to assign EPCs to each subscribing
organization, manage the master database, facilitate
the standardization of related technology, and promote the use of EPC technology all over the world.
The most prominent feature of EPCglobal is its
user-driven standardization. In June 2005, the number of the subscribing organizations reached 549.
Almost half of them are user companies. Organizations based in North America form the biggest faction(more than 350). There are about 80 European organizations and about 100 Asian organizations, including 22 Japanese companies.
2.1 Organization and standardization activities
of EPCglobal
The organization of EPCglobal is shown in Fig. 2.
Business action groups (BAGs) prepare EPC use
cases and the technical requirements derived fromthem for each industrial sector. At present, there are
two BAGs: one for the consumer packaged goods
industry called FMCG (fast moving consumer goods)
BAG and the other for the healthcare industry called
HLS (healthcare & life science) BAG. A new BAG
for the logistics industry was established at the end of2005 as TLS (transport and logistics service) BAG.
Each BAG has clear goals for using EPCs. The
FMCG BAG will use relatively long-range passive
tags (which do not contain batteries) operating in the
UHF band on cases/pallets of retail items for efficient
supply chain management. The HLS BAG is discussing the use of RFID for anti-counterfeit measures
for medicines by tagging each item with a relatively
short-range HF-band passive tag. Therefore, a security mechanism is required to prevent any tamperingwith the related information. The TLS BAG intends
to discuss the use of active tags (which contain a battery and oscillator) for the management of containers
in marine transportation.
Once the use cases and technical requirements havebeen finalized, the technical action group (TAG),
which is composed of a hardware action group(HAG) and software action group (SAG), will prepare technical standards according to the technicalrequirements produced by the BAGs. The Auto-ID

Board of governors

President/CEO

Business steeringcommittee

Technology steeringcommittee

FMCG BAGSAG

HLS BAG

HAG

Architecture
review
committee

Auto-ID
laboratories

Public policy
steering
committee

TLS BAG
Working parties forstandardization

Fig. 2. Organization of EPCglobal.

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Global Standardization Activities

Center had already worked out the basic specifications of both hardware and software by October 2003,
but EPCglobal must still settle the details of the specifications for each component and expand therequired but unresolved subjects to facilitate thesmooth adoption of EPC-related technology by user
companies. The main feature of EPCglobal’s standardization activities is its user-driven approach to
standardization. This is reflected strongly in theactivities of the TAGs, where priority is given to subjects requested by the user companies. Examples ofthis are clearly seen in the development of the tagreader air interface protocol standard for UHF-band
passive tags (UHF Class 1 Generation 2 Standard,
which is usually called “Gen 2”). This standard wasstrongly requested by big retail companies in the
USA and Europe, as well as by the U.S. Departmentof Defense. While efforts were focused on establishing the “Gen 2” standard, many EPCglobal activities
concerning other issues were put aside during 2004.
This case illustrates that even when something istechnically excellent, it is difficult to start discussionsof it in EPCglobal before specific user requirements
have been identified.
EPCglobal has the following steering functions
besides BAGs and TAGs. (1) The Business Steering
Committee and Technology Steering Committee govern the activities of each BAG and TAG and guidetheir activities toward the goals of EPCglobal. (2) The
Architecture Review Committee monitors the effects
of newly established standards on the existing architecture of the EPCglobal network and audits theactivities of BAGs and TAGs. (3) The Public Policy
Steering Committee monitors the effects on societyof the use of EPC technology (e.g., consumer privacy, environmental burden, and labor) and lobbies theappropriate government organization and congress.
(4) Auto-ID Laboratories engage in research anddevelopment of new EPC-related technologies andtake part in standardization activities in BAGs andTAGs.
2.2 EPCglobal network architecture
The architecture of the EPCglobal network is illustrated in Fig. 3. Here, two enterprises (A and B) want
to exchange tagged goods and related information(event history and attributes). For this exchange, thefollowing three points should be standardized:• IDs stored in tags
• air interface protocol of wireless communication
between tags and readers• data format and communication protocol
between EPCIS for storing and exchanging the
ID-related information.
On the other hand, the internal management of goodsin each enterprise is achieved by the standardizationof the following four subjects:• communication protocol between readers andmiddleware• mechanism to manage multiple readers efficiently• ID translation function for converting between
the binary encoding stored in tags and a format
that can be easily handled by application software
Security

Authentication
Internet
ID translation
Reader management
Reader protocol
VPN ofenterprise A

Internal systems(ERP, WMS, etc.)

EPCIS

Search &discovery

Data exchange (EPCIS)
Filtering

ONS

Authentication

VPN ofenterprise B

EPCIS

Middleware

Middleware

ReaderReaderInternal systems(ERP, WMS, etc.)

Tag-reader
air interface
protocolID
VPN: virtual private network

Fig. 3. Architecture of EPCglobal network.

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Global Standardization Activities• function for filtering and collecting raw data to
extract business meaning.
EPCglobal creates specifications for some of thesefunctions. Security measures such as authentication,access control, and encryption are required to ensure
the smooth exchange of information between enterprises. In addition, the EPCglobal network needs to
be integrated into existing internal systems in companies such as ERP (enterprise resource planning) andWMS (warehouse management system).
The relationship between the network architectureand standardized subjects of EPCglobal is shown in
Fig. 4. With a few exceptions, the standardization in
EPCglobal is mainly focused on the interface
between the functions making up the whole EPCglobal network, rather than on the functions themselves. Functions themselves are left as areas of competition among vendor companies. The most important thing is to ensure interoperability between the
products produced by different vendors.
EPCglobal has already finished establishing thefinal draft of the technical standard specifications ofbasic components other than EPCIS. These specifications should become the official EPCglobal standard
once they have been ratified by the Board of Governors. EPCIS specifications are close to being finalized. To facilitate global adoption of its standards,
EPCglobal is asking for the intellectual property
included in its standards to be royalty free. However,in response to strong requests from many vendor
companies, it created a mechanism for receiving reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) claims of

EPCIS accessing
application

intellectual property by establishing a 30-day intellectual property declaration period between the establishment of the final draft of a specification and its
ratification by the Board. Many Japanese companies
are reluctant to accept this position on intellectual
property by EPCglobal and only a few Japanese companies are actively involved in EPCglobal standardization at present.
EPCglobal is also developing a verification mechanism for various software and hardware products
from vendor companies. It will test (1) conformance
to EPCglobal standards, (2) interoperability between
products developed by different vendors, and (3) performance in the real world. EPCglobal aims to establish a verification mechanism for hardware (tags andreaders) soon. Based on the results of these tests,
EPCglobal prepares guidelines for user companies inorder to choose among the many products on the market.
2.3 Future developments of EPCglobal
As most of the minimum requirements for EPCglobal standards have already been almost met, future
developments will focus on the following issues.
Most of the hardware-related work is devoted to the
tag-reader air interface protocol of passive tags, especially UHF-band tags which can be used over relatively long distances and are suitable for efficient
supply chain management. Many user companies inthe HLS BAG are now asking for item-level tagging,so discussion on enlarging and strengthening thefunctions of HF-band passive tags for relatively

Local
ONS

EPCIS query interface
EPCIS repository

EPCIS accessing
application
Enterprise B

ONS APIEPCIS capture interface
EPCIS capturing application

EPCIS
Standard specification

Middleware interface

Function

Middleware (filtering & data collection)
Reader protocol/reader management interface

API: application programming interface

ReaderEnterprise A
Tag-reader air interface protocol
ID
Tag

Fig. 4. Functions and standard specifications of EPCglobal network.

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Global Standardization Activities

short-range use, which are more suitable for this purpose, will start soon. Moreover, the TLS BAG is
examining use cases of active tags and sensors, so
standardization of such hardware is likely to begin
before long.
Most of the software-related requirements havealready been met. However, unresolved subjects need
to be worked out from now on. One unresolved subject is security measures such as authentication,access control, and encryption. They are listed as subjects of future discussion. Another subject is a searchand discovery mechanism for finding all the databases located around the world storing event history andattributes related to a specific ID. This is expected tobe conceptually like an Internet search engine, but
practical design of this component has not begun yet.
Aside from these technical developments, EPCglobal is now trying to expand its adoption by manydifferent industry sectors. Having already established
BAGs for three industries, EPCglobal is now
approaching the industry segments of aerospace anddefense, automotive, apparel, and consumer electronics. For the automotive and consumer electronics segments, EPCglobal is very interested in active participation by Japanese manufacturers.
3. Other standardization activities
Among user companies in the U.S.A. and Europe,
EPCglobal standards are regarded not as merely oneof several candidates, but as the one and only set ofstandards without any other alternatives. For mostJapanese companies, however, it is difficult to apply
the use cases of companies in the United States andEurope and to determine the return on investment for
using RFID, so only a few of them are trying to
implement the EPCglobal standards.
One of the standardization activities centered inJapan is led by the Ubiquitous ID Center [3], which
was established in the T-Engine Forum [4] in March
2003. More than 480 companies and research institutes participate in the T-Engine Forum, and most ofthem are Japanese. While EPCglobal has a clear
vision of “user-driven standardization”, the Ubiquitous ID Center is mainly managed by vendor companies developing the technology. From a global perspective, many organizations in Asian countries, suchas South Korea, China, India, and Singapore, areinvolved in the Ubiquitous ID Center.
The basic concept of Ubiquitous ID is similar tothat of Auto-ID (shown in Fig. 1). In addition, security mechanisms using encryption and authentication
60

have already been prepared. The Ubiquitous ID Center is focusing on pilot projects for verifying Ubiquitous ID technology.
China is also conducting its own standardization
activities and is expected to establish a Chinese Standard that is consistent with the EPCglobal standards.
EPCglobal is eager to incorporate these Chinese
activities into its standardization activities and isproactively engaged in Chinese standardization
activities.
ISO (international organization for standardization), which is an international organization for establishing industrial standards, is also preparing RFIDrelated standards. It began discussions on RFID for
managing general items in 1997 and it has alreadymade standards for the air interface protocol between
tags and readers (ISO/IEC 18000-1 to -7 for eachradio frequency), data format (ISO/IEC 15961 and
15962), unique ID (ISO/IEC 15963), application
requirements (TR 18001), and so on. Becoming an
ISO standard is important for any technology that is
intended for global use, and EPCglobal has alreadysubmitted the “Gen 2” standard for the tag-reader air
interface protocol for UHF-band passive tags as
ISO/IEC 18000-6 type C. It is expected to be adopted
as the ISO standard in March 2006. EPCglobal will
try to submit its other standards to ISO as appropriate.
References
[1]

[2]
[3]
[4]

J. Yamato and T. Asahi, “MIT Auto-ID Center Advances the Standardization of RFID tags,” NTT Technical Review, Vol. 1, No. 5, pp.
95-97, 2003.
http://www.epcglobalinc.org/
http://www.uidcenter.org/
http://www.t-engine.org/

Mitsuo Tsukada
Senior Research Engineer, Service Innovation
Project, NTT Service Integration Laboratories.
He received the B.S. and M.E. degrees in physical chemistry from Waseda University, Tokyoin 1986 and 1988, respectively. He joined NTT
in 1988 and engaged in R&D for improving thereliability of interconnections in silicon-based
LSIs and ferroelectric oxide thin films for LSIs.
From 1998 to 2002, he worked to establish an
R&D department at NTT MSC in Malaysia andon projects to transfer technology to Malaysianand Southeast Asian companies. Since 2002, hehas been participating in RFID standardization
activities. He is a member of the Japan Society ofApplied Physics.

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