An overview of anti-collision protocols for radio frequency identification devices

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a new type of non-contact automatic identification technology. Due to its low energy consumption, low cost, and its adaptability to harsh environments, it has been applied to many fields. In the RFID systems, data collision is inevitable when the reader sends a communication request and multiple tags respond with simultaneous data transmission. Data collision is prone to causing problems such as: identification delay, spectrum resource waste, a decreased system throughput rate, etc. Therefore, an efficient, stable anti-collision protocol is crucial for RFID systems. This research analysed the current research into RFID anti-collision protocols and summarised means for its improvement through the mechanism of implementation of different types anti-collision protocols. Finally, a new direction is proposed for the future development of RFID anti-collision protocol systems.