A new RFID Middleware architecture based on a hybrid security technique using data encryption and RBAC for modern real-time tracking applications

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a contactless technology that has developed over the 90s and 20th centuries. It employs electromagnetic or electrostatic coupling in the radio frequency part of the electromagnetic spectrum to uniquely identify traceable objects, and is widely used in various sectors (e.g., medical, Supply Chain Management, transportation, and IoT applications.). Through the supply of real-world monitoring and context information about things, the integration of this technology in such areas delivers various benefits in the future of ubiquitous computing. However, one of the primary challenges will be the capacity to manage data since RFID events have specific characteristics and requires special treatment, such as the large volume of data flow, inaccuracy, temporal and spatial data, are typical examples of RFID event data. The goal of this research is to first highlight the concerns and limitations of existing middleware architectures before introducing and implementing a new Middleware architecture to address the identified issues, specifically real-time processing of massive volumes of data coming from physical RFID infrastructure. This middleware combines role-based access control with an encryption algorithm to increase security, a NoSQL database for storing large amounts of data, complex event processing (CEP) to provide high-volume data stream processing, and improved interoperability via the Data Transformation Module. Finally, our architecture is evaluated and compared to several middleware architectures based on standard ISO/IEC 9126 metrics.