ABSTRACT
Radio Frequency
IDentification (RFID), a technology grouped
under the term Automatic Identification (Auto-ID) system, has been considered as “the next big thing” in
the computer world, no wonder it is sometimes referred to as the “the internet
of things” meaning the internetwork of networks of lots of things (objects).
RFID can facilitate real-time tracking of assets with no necessary presence of
any human intervention regardless of whether they are on the move, installed in
cabinets or stored in briefcases, racks or on shelves. This paper, making use
of a theoretical approach designs a RFID-based secured University environment using
13.56MHz re-writeable passive-high frequency RFID tags with fixed, hand-held,
mobile and walk-in readers. The design purpose is to secure staffs’, students’
and the University’s valuable assets ranging from mobile computing devices like
laptops, mobile phones to other office electronic equipments and machineries.
This comes from the many issues of misplacements, theft and misuse of
university assets and those of staffs and students. This paper inclusively will help spread the fact that RFID tagging is
capable of vastly improving the efficiency of any University’s internal assets
management.
Keyword: RFID,
Automatic Identification, “the internet of things”, Asset Management, Internetwork,
Real-time tracking.
1.0
INTRODUCTION
The success of
RFID technology in baggage handling in the airline industry to identify
individual passenger’s baggage has brought about the evolving deployments of
other related rapidly broadening range of applications of RFID technology for
security and identification of assets. As well known, the basic functionality
of RFID is identification [4]. This technology has been confirmed as the “most pervasive
computing technology in history” [1]. RFID technology itself is an old
technology dated back to 1939 when it was developed in England
