RFID data management and RFID information value chain support with RFID middleware platform implementation

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) middleware is a new breed of software system which facilitates data communication between automatic identification equipments like RFID readers and enterprise applications. It provides a distributed environment to process the data coming from tags, filter and then deliver it to a variety of backend applications via various communication protocols including web services. In this paper, we focus on the information flow converting raw RFID data to useful information which may even be used to lead to automated business process execution and further to knowledge to support decision making, and we define the information flow as so-called 'RFID Information Value Chain (RFID IVC)'. We examine the elements and associated activities of RFID IVC and also introduce the RFID middleware ecosystem not only to provide the seamless environment spanning from the edge of the enterprise network to the enterprise systems, but also to support the activities arisen on RFID IVC. RFID middleware ecosystem consists of RFID middleware, rule engine to generate business semantic events and orchestration engine to coordinate sort of business process invoked by RFID tag data capture event. Moreover, the implementations of each system residing in RFID middleware ecosystem are introduced and the relationship between RFID middleware ecosystem and RFID IVC is demonstrated.