Internet of Things A to Z

5RFID in the Internet of Things

Akaa Agbaeze Eteng,¹ Sharul Kamal Abdul Rahim,² and Chee Yen Leow²

¹Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

²Wireless Communication Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia

5.1 Introduction

The expansion of the current “internet of computers” to the Internet of Things (IoT) requires an ecosystem characterized by interactions between everyday objects with embedded online intelligence. By implication, such smart objects would be capable of data-driven real-time interventions without human mediation. One of the requirements for this pervasive information acquisition and sharing environment is that objects should be characterized by an innate ability to gather contextual data about their internal or external environments (Roselli et al., 2015). This suggests a need to embed sensors in everyday objects. Furthermore, smart objects should be able to communicate acquired data to other entities. Historically, radio frequency identification (RFID) is one of the earliest technologies whose utility required embedding or placing electronics on an object. Given the fact the RFID is also a communications technology, it is currently touted as a promising technology to be incorporated in smart objects for the IoT (Vermesan and Friess, 2013).

This chapter aims to provide a background to the use of RFID in the IoT. It begins with a brief historical perspective of RFID technology, showing ...