The ISO/IEC 15962 Standard
RFID Data Protocol: An Overview
- The Data Protocol fills a gap in communications by providing sets of rules for encoding and communicating between the application and the RFID tag.
- Business issues are addressed by the application interface and allow each library to determine what data elements are encoded and to use existing data structures.
- ISO/IEC 15961 defines commands and responses that are used to design the flexible software that comprises the application interface.
- The encoding rules of ISO/IEC 15962 convert the input data into efficient encoding on the RFID tag.
- This encoding is then available to the RFID system to transfer across the air interface between the interrogator and the RFID tag.
- The decoding rules of ISO/IEC 15962 enable selective reading of particular data elements.
Already, the standard is being used for baggage handling, in the automotive sector, and in retail distribution. Many other sectors have made initial provisions to use the RFID Data Protocol, including: libraries, food traceability, engineering sectors, and blood transfusion services. This means that, over the next few years, other applications should be able to install systems that have components, either in software or embedded in hardware, that support the various ways that ISO/IEC 15962 supports the encoding of data.