A syndication-based messaging protocol for the global RFID network

Abstract

This Master of Engineering thesis describes the design and implementation of a syndication based messaging protocol for the global RFID network. The motivation behind the design is to develop a scalable model that can be applied to "Internet of Things" technologies, which are used to encompass the large data volume of physical objects in the world. In striving to achieve this, the underlying publish/subscribe system implementation can be applied to large-scale communication and information networks. The messaging protocol presented is text-based; this approach offers a human-understandable, user-friendly protocol. Similar to RSS version 2.0, the format of the message conforms to existing XML specifications, but also adopts a structure that represents the RFID data organization more clearly. As an example method, Windows Forms applications were created to provide a Graphical User Interface (GUI) component for visualizing the publish/subscribe messaging model. The design implements a lightweight messaging protocol that is both scalable to model large-scale networks and extensible to allow aggregation of content across multiple data sources.