Ensuring dual security modes in rfid-enabled supply chain systems

Abstract

While RFID technology has greatly facilitated the supply chain management, designing a secure, visible, and efficient RFID- enabled supply chain system is still a challenge since the three equally important requirements (i.e., security, visibility, and efficiency) may conflict to each other. Few research works have been conducted to address these issues simultaneously. In this paper, we observe the different security requirements in RFID-enabled supply chain environments and differentiate the simplified model into two security levels. Accordingly, dual security modes are properly defined in our RFID setting. In the relatively secure environment, our system is set to the weak security mode, the tagged products can be processed in a highly efficient way. When in the strong security mode, our system guarantees a high level of security, while its efficiency is lower than that in the weak security mode. A set of RFID tag/reader protocols to facilitate the duel security modes are presented. Their security, visibility and efficiency are analyzed and compared with the relevant works. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.