A framework for processing uncertain RFID data in supply chain management

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is widely used to track and trace objects in supply chain management. However, massive uncertain data produced by RFID readers are not suitable for directly use in RFID applications. Following our thorough analysis of key features of RFID objects, this paper proposes a new framework for effectively and efficiently processing uncertain RFID data, and supporting a variety of queries for tracking and tracing RFID objects. In particular, we propose an adaptive cleaning method by adjusting size of smoothing window according to various rates of uncertain data, employing different strategies to process uncertain readings, and distinguishing different types of uncertain data according to their appearing positions. We propose a comprehensive data model, which is suitable for a wide range of application scenarios. In addition, a path coding scheme is proposed to significantly compress massive data by aggregating the path sequences, the positions and the time intervals. Experimental evaluations show that our approach is effective and efficient in terms of the compression and traceability queries.