RFID-enhanced Ubiquitous Knowledge Bases: framework and approach

As opposed to classical paradigms, in pervasive computing the user simultaneously interacts with several micro-devices such as RFID tags “integrated” into the environment, extracting data from them. Current approaches based on centralized control and information storage are utterly impractical. Here a ubiquitous Knowledge Base (u-KB) is defined as a distributed knowledge base whose individual facts are disseminated on RFID-tagged objects within the environment, without centralized coordination. The proposed framework includes: (i) components and operations specification of a u-KB, (ii) a distributed applicationlayer protocol for dissemination and discovery of knowledge embedded within RFIDs dipped in a MANET and (iii) a homomorphic algorithm for compressing on-tag data. The feasibility of the approach has been confirmed by a large-scale simulation campaign.