A simple performance analysis of RFID networks with binary tree collision arbitration

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) networks are becoming a widespread technology in industry and commerce. In this paper, we propose a simple performance analysis of RFID networks, based on the binary tree collision arbitration protocol. We evaluate various network performance metrics such as throughput, delay and average number of packets needed to take a census of the RFID tags. In order to validate our analytical results, we develop a simple, yet accurate, simulator and show that the predicted analytical performance is in good agreement with the simulation results. While the analytical approach does not take into account the communication channel characteristics, we evaluate, through simulations, the impact of fading and topology (in terms of tag spatial density) on the network performance.