A Quality Evaluation Technique of RFID Middleware in Ubiquitous Computing

With ubiquitous computing system, users can access information through a computer network at any time and in any place. The basic infrastructure of ubiquitous computing system is wireless network environment, and a RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) system is composed tags, readers, middleware, application services, etc. and uses networks. RFID middleware is system software that collects a large volume of raw data generated in RFID environment, filters the data, summarizes them into meaningful information and delivers the information to application services. RFID middleware links hardware to conventional middleware. Previous researches on RFID middleware have covered middleware from SUN, SAP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. These products attach importance to different quality characteristics, and there have been few researches on the quality properties of RFID middleware. The present study examined functionality, reliability, usability, efficiency and portability among the quality characteristics of software in international standard ISO/IEC 9126 as well as the quality elements of standard RFID middleware of EPC Global, and based on them we extracted and analyzed items for evaluating the quality of RFID middleware in ubiquitous computing systems. Using the AHP (Analytic hierarchy process) that enables rational decision making by simplifying complicated problems, we evaluated the subjective characteristics of stakeholders in an objective way and proposed a selection method that evaluates quality using quality evaluation criteria. The proposed evaluation selection method is useful for developers who are going to develop RFID middleware in areas such as distribution and logistics to select RFID middleware suitable for their environment.