Emerging RFID/USN Applications and Challenges

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), also known as Ubiquitous Sensor network (USN) are two important wireless sensing technologies that have wide variety of applications and provide unlimited future potentials. RFID is used to detect presence and location of objects using radio-frequency waves and the ability to do information transfer between tagged objects and readers without line of sight creates tremendous opportunities for linking various objects from real world. These objects are numbered, identified, catalogued, and tracked. WSN is used to sense and monitor the environment through spatially distributed autonomous devices using sensors such as temperature, sound, vibration, pressure and motion etc. Currently, RFID is emerging as an important technology for revolutionizing a wide range of applications including supply chain management, retail, anti-counterfeiting, baggage handling, and healthcare. Also, WSNs are now used in many civilian application areas, including environment and habitat monitoring, healthcare applications, home automation and traffic control. Initially, RFID and WSN have specific application areas deployed but many applications today also demand for the integration of these two. There are many emerging applications which adopt these technologies today and they have the potential to unleash new opportunities for growth in the market. We mentioned some of emerging applications which applied RFID or WSNs or both. Lastly, the challenges of these technologies are also discussed.