If objects could talk: a novel resource discovery approach for pervasive environments

Abstract

Abstract:We propose to extend standard Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) usage by storing semantically annotated data within RFID tags memory, so that objects may actually 'describe themselves' in a variety of scenarios. In particular here we exploit our approach to carry out an advanced matchmaking process using metadata stored in RFIDs. A 'fully backward compatible' modification to the original RFID data exchange protocol is presented, allowing to implement an advanced resource discovery framework. A compression algorithm specifically devised to ease embedding of annotated DIG description is also proposed. Motivations and benefits of the approach are outlined in a tracking of agricultural and food products case study.Keywords: RFID; Semantic Web; matchmaking; pervasive computing.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Ruta, M., Di Noia, T., Di Sciascio, E., Scioscia, F. and Piscitelli, G. (2007) Biographical notes: Michele Ruta received the Laurea Degree in Electronic Engineering from Politecnico di Bari (Technical University of Bari) in 2002 and his PhD in InformationEngineering from the same University in 2007. His research interests include pervasive computing and ubiquitous web, mobile service discovery and composition, knowledge representation systems and applications for wireless ad-hoc contexts. On these topics he has co-authored various papers in international journals and conferences. He is involved in various research projects related to his research interests.Tommaso Di Noia is an Assistant Professor in Information Technology Engineering at Technical University of Bari (Politecnico di Bari). He got his PhD from Technical University of Bari. His main scientific interests include: description logics -theoretical and practical aspects; resource matchmaking; knowledge representation systems for electronic commerce; automatic (web) services discovery and composition; knowledge representation systems and applications for the semantic web. He co-authored papers which received the best paper award at conferences ICEC-2004 and IEEE CEC-EEE-2006.

RFID-assisted Product Delivery in Sustainable Supply Chains: A Knowledge-based Approach

“…Our proposal for semantic-enabled RFID [16] allows tags to contain a structured and detailed description of product features, endowed with unambiguous and machineunderstandable semantics. Semantically annotated information is encoded in a compact way by means of an algorithm aimed at efficient compression of XML-based ontological languages [17].…”

“…This approach, inherited from traditional RFID applications, poses major architectural and organizational challenges for information sharing in complex multi-party supply chains. Conversely, our core idea is that, as physical products flow among supply chain partners, ipso facto relevant high-level information about them is conveyed [16] and can be exploited for meaningful business analysis at different levels [7]. Recent studies [8,23] highlighted factors in favor of data-on-tag approaches w.r.t.…”

“…We propose an RFID-based delivery management system extending classic supply chain organization and shipment models using techniques and technologies for smart tagging [16] and a semantic-based decision support [4]. Due to space constraints, the reader is referred to cited works for an explanation of used Descritpion Logic languages and algorithms.…”

“…Map of supply chain nodes in our case study. [16], semantic-based annotation in compressed OWL-DL format and delivery information, expressed with geographic coordinates.…”

“…Canonical EPCglobal RFID identification has been extended [16,7], providing semantic-based value-added services whose deployment and outcomes have been grounded in an advanced "green supply chain" setting. Semantic Web languages such as OWL 2 and DIG [3] are used for building the linguistic and semantic infrastructure underlying a networked and capillary exchange of information among chain actors aimed at overcoming restrictions imposed by existing RFID solutions.…”