Challenges of Using Wireless Sensor Network-Based RFID Technology for Industrial IoT Applications

Introduction

Information is essential for any business organization, and organizations must take strategic initiatives to design and deploy corporate information systems (IS). A planned strategic IS can help an organization gain a long-term competitive advantage. In addition, a strategic IS can be created from scratch, developed by modifying an existing system, or discovered by realizing a system already exists. While businesses continue exploring new ways of creating strategic IS, some well-appreciated strategic IS evolved from less lofty endeavors: the wish to enhance mendable operations using information technology (IT) produced a system that helps strategic decision-making for regular business operations (Shih et al., 2009; Pal & Palmer, 1999).

Strategic IS has always been a wildcard in business operations, a source of opportunity to fulfill business aspirations and benefits, and often full of uncertainty and risk. In addition, since the inception of business computing applications, different industries have tightened their embrace of IT, and for good reason. Despite exasperating moments, technology has become embedded in how industries define and execute strategy, organize and lead businesses, and define a unique value proposition. Besides, the pace of IT change has been both dramatic and disconcerting. The co-evolution of technology, work, and the workforce over the last 60 years has dramatically influenced business executives' concept of organizations and the industries within which they compete. Moreover, information has become a significant economic good, frequently exchanged in business transactions with or in place of tangible goods and services, which need appropriate infrastructure.

The 1990s added considerably to the mystique and the magic of IT. Something dramatic happened to technology, although it is probably too early to discern the full impact. Many people remember the first time they opened a browser and gained access to the World Wide Web (WWW). For some executives who had lived their lives avoiding technology, a light came on, and they glimpsed the potential of what previously had lain deep within the silicon switches that processed data in the organization's basement. A few years later, as the Internet of Things (IoT) concept materialized worldwide in complex ecosystems, the related business process data capturing and processing issues became apparent. In recent decades, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) based radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies are paving the way for the Internet of Things (IoT) applications to automate some critical business information systems (Pal, 2018; Pal, 2019; Pal, 2021; Pal, 2022; Pal, 2023).

The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm mainly focuses on providing many small, interconnected devices that can work with everyday purposes for industrial applications. These devices are intelligent, with sensing and wireless communication capabilities. In this work practice, two essential technologies are deployed and are becoming the two fundamental pillars of IoT applications: Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs). These technologies mainly use wireless sensing and communication, the two primary needs of any IoT-based information systems (IS) that pervade almost every aspect of daily business and human activities.

RFID is an auto-identification technology that uses two main types of devices: a reader, the central unit of communication, and the tags, which have an associated electronic code they use for unique identification purposes. The reader interacts with the tags using radio frequency (RF) signals for identification and information-gathering purposes, and the tags respond to the reader's integration with their respective identification number (ID). Often Tags incorporate sensors, which will backscatter the sensor data. Tags are of distinct types: (i) active (powered by a battery) and (ii) passive (harvesting the energy from the reader's RF signal). RFID is a consolidated technology for identifying assets, security, and track-and-trace applications that use passive tags to ease the density of tags available within the interrogation zone.