This document discusses connecting physical items to the internet through radio frequency identification (RAIN/RFID) technology. It describes how RAIN/RFID tags could provide each physical item with a unique identifier and digital twin to store item data. The document outlines the benefits of this approach, such as enabling item tracking, authentication, and accessing item histories. It also discusses some of the challenges around establishing this internet of things system and the need for discovery services and standardized approaches to digital ownership and data access.

1. IoT Track
March 7, 2018

2. RAIN, Cloud & the Chained Twin
Chris Diorio
CEO, Impinj

3. 3© 2018
Suppose You Wanted to Connect
Every Item in Your Everyday World

4. 4© 2018
To connect people and businesses to items
You’d First Ask Why?
 To identify, locate and authenticate each
physical item
 To store and access each item’s history,
ownership and available services in an
item’s digital twin
Physical
Item
Digital
Twin

5. 5© 2018
Costs pennies
1000 tags/sec
10m range
Then You’d Ask How?
You’d use a wireless technology suitable for connecting items
– No batteries
– Unlimited life
– Fast & long range
– Small & low cost
– Unique identifier on every item
– You’d call it RAdio IdentificatioN

6. 6© 2018
Am I For Real?
A few of the billions
of items (or things)
already connected

7. 7© 2018
Yes, I’m for Real
- Reduce Lost Baggage
- Speed Bag Offloading
- Track Assets
- Enhance Security
- Increase Store Efficiency
- Improve Customer Experience
- Streamline Operations
- Ensure Quality
- Identify / Track Vehicles
- Fast, Cashless Fueling
- Automate Drug Tracking
- Improve Asset Utilization
Food
Retail
Automotive
Healthcare
Airlines
Datacenter
(1)
(1) These RAIN programs may, but do not necessarily, use the Company's products.

8. 8© 2018
The True Internet of Things
Little RAIN IC Big Opportunity

9. 9© 2018
Linking the Physical and Digital Worlds
DNS2
DNS2
Applications
Item Twin
Owner-managed
access rights
Item Services
Physical items have digital twins
• Twin: in the cloud
• Item: in my possession
I own both the item and its twin
• Twin: my access rights
• Item: my owner rights
I benefit from the item’s digital life
• Twin: ownership, history & available services1
• Item: identity, location & authenticity
Owner-managed
access rights
1. An example of a service is counterfeit detection/avoidance
2. DNS is a metaphor for discovery to resolve item identities to URIs

10. 10© 2018
Deep-Dive Example
PERSONDISTRIBUTOR RETAILERMANUFACTURER
ITEM’S PHYSICAL LIFE
ITEM’S DIGITAL LIFE
RoutingOrigination Management
Manufacturing Warehouse Backstore Store Floor
Shipment Receipt FSBS Fitting room Checkout
Receipt
Shipment Receipt
Unique
Identity
Automatic
Restocking
Brand
Protection
Self-
Checkout
Contract
Fulfillment
Contract
Fulfillment
Item
Sale

11. 11© 2018
• Manufacturer
– Associates RAIN identifier with cloud-based twin
– Stores detailed manufacturing data in twin
• Grants retailer access to some item data
• Grants consumer access to warranty
• Shipper
– Automatically fulfills transfer contract
• Hash-chains ownership transfer
• Authenticates item as genuine
– Stores shipping/routing data in new twin
• Grants retailer access to shipping/routing data
• Distributor
– Automatically fulfills transfer contract
• Hash-chains ownership transfer
• Authenticates item as genuine
– Stores receipt & location data in new twin
• Grants store access to item availability
Authentication and Chaining
DISTRIBUTORMANUFACTURER
RoutingOrigination
Manufacturing Warehouse
Shipment Receipt Shipment
Unique
Identity
Brand
Protection
Contract
Fulfillment

12. 12© 2018
IoT Opportunities
1. Digital life for physical items
2. People engaging connected items
3. Developers innovating an IoT ecosystem
What We Must Deliver
1. Discovery service that resolves item
identifiers to twins
2. Authentication service(s) that ensures
physical items are genuine
3. Standardized ownership, privacy and
data rights/privileges for twins
Progress Towards the Vision
Reading
In Progress – Item Connectivity Inevitable – Digital Life for Items
Identification

13. 13© 2018
History as a Guide
TODAY:
Internet Era
PAST: Private Networks Era
Internet Evolution IoT Expectation
FUTURE:
Internet-of-Things
TODAY: Private Networks of Things

14. 14© 2018
RAIN will Better Our World
Mission
To enable businesses and consumers to
identify, locate, authenticate and engage
items in our everyday world
Vision
A future where everyday things are part of
a connected world
Driving people-friendly branding is essential to this IoT vision
– RAIN connects everyday items to the cloud –

15. 15© 2018
THANK YOU

16. 16© 2018
IoT, RAIN and Chains
Robert Beideman
SVP – Solutions and Innovation, GS1

17. 17© 2018

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IoT, RAIN and Chains

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External Forces
Do more.
Think differently.
Speed up.
Expand interoperability.

20. 20© 2018
New stakeholders have
arrived

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Reduce costs.
Create experiences.
Sell more stuff.

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Transparency.
Speed.
Trust.

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Identification.
Data.
Events.
Interoperability.

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Identification.
Data.
Events.
Interoperability.

25. 25© 2018
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Physical Digital

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https://data.gs1.org/gti
n
/9507000009060/
Digital
identification
Physical
identification

29. 29© 2018
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https://data.gs1.org/gti
n
/9507000009060/
Digital
identification
Physical
identification

30. 30© 2018
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Digital
identification
Physical
identification

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Physical
identification
Digital
identification

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Physical
identification
Digital
identification
Scale

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Identification.
Data.
Events.
Interoperability.

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36. 36© 2018
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Physical
product
Digital twin

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Physical
product
Digital twin

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Identification.
Data.
Events.
Interoperability.

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Physical
tracking
Event data
sharing

40. 40© 2018
One-up
One-down
40
End-to-end
visibility
Was it sold
legally?
Was it
sustainably
sourced?
Where is my
shipment?

41. 41© 2018
Expanding our systems
From codes/tags to registries

42. 42© 2018
Manual business
processes
42
Decentralised
blockchains

43. 43© 2018
Separating
content from it’s
exchange

44. 44© 2018
Blockchains & data stores
Node NodeNode Node
Owner 1 Owner 2 Owner 3 Owner 4
Enterprise Blockchain ledger
- Access and permission control layers
- Pointers to off-chain data and hashes of off-chain data
- Some relevant pieces of data needed for validation and business
processes and smart contracts
- Identifiers based on GS1 keys (party, location, things, etc) – likely
obfuscated
- Data stored in accordance with GS1 standard data structures
Off-chain resources
- Access and permission control layers
- Event, transaction and master data stored in accordance with
GS1 standard data structures (such as EPCIS Event Data
Repositories)
- Identifiers based on GS1 keys (party, location, things, etc)
- Other data resources that may be needed (documents,
images, files, etc)
EPCIS
Event
Rep.
Data
Store
EPCIS
Event
Rep.
Data
Store

45. 45© 2018
45
Internet
of Things
Virtual
reality
Is my bear
authentic?

46. 46© 2018
Many objects, smart devices,
machines, consumers, patients,
and services being increasingly
connected to solve problems in
new and more effective ways
Consumer IoT

47. 47© 2018
What we need from things/devices
•Who
•What
•How
Is my bear
authentic?

48. 48© 2018
Fundamentals…not yet figured…
•Trusted Identity
•Messaging
•Authentication
•Data Model

49. 49© 2018 4
A Bag’s Life: Post-Purchase
C-IoT Components
Identify
GS1 Identification Numbers
Capture
GS1 Data Carriers
Share
GS1 Data Exchange

50. 50© 2018
A Bag’s Life: On the Road
55
C-IoT Components
Identify
GS1 Identification Numbers
Capture
GS1 Data Carriers
Share
GS1 Data Exchange

51. 51© 2018
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Identification.
Data.
Events.
Interoperability.

52. 52© 2018
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Transparency.
Speed.
Trust.

53. 53© 2018
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Reduce costs.
Create experiences.
Sell more stuff.

54. 54© 2018
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Physical Digital

55. 55© 2018
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58. 58© 2018
RAIN and NFC Coexistence in
Commercial Smart Device
Jagat Shah
System Research Consultant, Lenovo Motorola

59. 59© 2018
Introduction
• RAIN RFID reader becomes a major tool to interact with the IoT world
– RFID tags are deployed massively (from 8.9 billion tags sold in 2015 to 10.4 billion in
2016)
– RFID is often seen as a prerequisite for the IoT

60. 60© 2018
Research Goals
• RAIN RFID needs to coexist with all wireless
connectivity, including NFC, to be effective in IoT
i.e. convergence of technologies
• Implement a widely used IoT sensor, i.e., the RAIN
RFID reader, into the smartphone system and
utilize the low power management framework to
control it

61. 61© 2018
Major Challenges
• No existing interface that enables the RAIN RFID reader to establish a
direct high-speed connection to the lower level smartphone hardware
without significant modifications on the phones hardware framework
• Severe signal interferences amongst different RF and communication
modules while the RFID reader antenna is active
• Unbearable battery life degradation of a consumer smartphone when the
RAIN RFID reader is up and running

62. 62© 2018
System Overview
• Four subsystems:
– RAIN RFID Reader MOD Subsystem
– MOD Low Power Management Subsystem
– MOD Support Subsystem
– Battery and Antenna Subsystem

63. 63© 2018
System Design
• MOD Low power management system
RAIN Reader
Micro
Controller

64. 64© 2018
System Design
• Battery and Antenna Subsystem
Two Antenna
Vertical and
Horizontal
Battery
Appx
1000mAh

65. 65© 2018
RFID Signal Isolation Analysis
• Experimental Testbed Setup
RAIN
Reader

66. 66© 2018
RFID Signal Isolation Analysis
• Radio spectrum of RFID scanning signal

67. 67© 2018
RFID Signal Isolation Analysis
• No RF interference amongst RFID and native wireless modules

68. 68© 2018
RFID Reader CAS Sensor Performance
• Working distance (where the read count rate of a RFID tag is higher than
50%) : 4 M
• Maximum sensing distance: 4.5 M
• Read signal capture status:

69. 69© 2018
Major Contributions
• Design and implement a prototype of modular RFID reader Mods which:
– Directly connects the RFID module to the lower level structure of a smartphone’s
hardware
– Minimizes the RF interference between RFID module and other native wireless
components on the smartphone system via special antenna design
– Compensates the power consumption of the active RFID scan and recovers the
smartphone’s battery life to normal status

70. 70© 2018
Thank you
• Question ?

71. 71© 2018
EVERYONE WINS USING
RAIN & NFC!
Peter Phaneuf
President, eAgile Incorporated

72. 72© 2018
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• Headquartered in Grand Rapids, MI, USA
• Since 2004 eAgile has been providing IoT solutions to include:
• RFID (LF, HF (NFC), UHF)
• Digital Print
• System (Software/Hardware) Integration
• eAgile services clients in over 40 countries across 6 continents
• eAgile specializes in item level Serialization and Secure Digital Print
• eAgile has been awarded several international patents relating to RFID product
innovations

73. 73© 2018
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As the unbiased resource for networking, education, advocacy
and standards, AIM will help its members grow their
businesses by fostering the effective use of Automatic
Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) solutions
To enable businesses and consumers to identify, locate,
authenticate, and engage items in our everyday world.
The NFC Forum brings the convenience of NFC technology to
life. We empower organizations to deliver secure, tap-based
interactions with an intuitive, reliable experience to users
around the globe.
Mission
Statements

75. 75© 2018
Dual Frequency
✓ Provides benefits to manufacturing, supply chain,
marketing and consumers.
✓ Reduced investment compared to a two tag option.
✓ Can be read/programmed from either frequency.
✓ Can be read/programmed at line speeds and in dense
tag populations.
+
Dual Frequency combines UHF and NFC into a single
chip.
ISO 18000-63 and ISO 14443A-3

76. 76© 2018
+
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77. 77© 2018
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OR (for simplicity): eLin+

78. 78© 2018
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79. 79© 2018
Chain of Custody, Event Visibility
Brand Owner/
Manufacturer Distributor Retail/
eCommerc
e
Manufacturer
Distributor
Manufacturer
Distributor
Retailer
Event Data
Manufacturer
Consumer
Consumer
Product Serial #
& Date
Manufacturer
Distributor
Retailer
Product Serial #
& Date
Product Serial #
& Date
Product Serial #
& Date
Event Data Event Data Event Data

80. 80© 2018
Brand
Owner
Manufactur
er
Distributor
Retailer
End
Customer
Benefits
+

81. 81© 2018
•Unique Serialization
•Manufacturing Visibility
•Supply Chain Visibility
•Anti-Counterfeiting
•Combat Diversion
•Regulatory Compliance
•Sales Uplift
•One-Tap Re-ordering
•Authentication
•Brand Interaction (Web or App)
•Product Validation
•Social Media
•Loyalty Programs

82. 82© 2018
eLink ™ Sponsored and Produced by eAgile, Inc.