System LBT In Europe: An Overview Of The Solution, Performance Breakthrough, And ETSI TG34 Demonstration Results

RFID adoption in Europe has been hampered to date by limited spectrum availability and even more so by the Listen Before Talk (LBT) regulations that were imposed to deal with RF constraints. The European community recognizes these challenges and has been working through EPCglobal and ETSI to address realistic alternatives that are good for both RFID users and other low power radio application users.

The "System LBT" concept was developed as a strategy applying individual-device LBT rules to a group (a "system") of RFID readers operating simultaneously on the same channel. System LBT was the genesis of a set of proposals made to ETSI by a group formed by the EPCglobal Hardware Action Group (HAG); this group is known as HACET. Among the HACET proposals was one that involves networked control of readers using a device generically referred to as a Reader Network Controller (RNC). The RNC approach moves LBT functionality from the individual readers to a central coordination platform that performs the LBT function for an entire group of readers.

This paper describes the Reva Systems' RNC approach to implementing System LBT. It also provides results of the ETSI TG34 demonstration and System LBT concept trials held at Metro Group's distribution center in Unna, Germany, in September 2006. The demonstration was very successful, and as a result the European standards process has moved rapidly to adopt key recommendations that would replace current LBT regulations. A three-phase, multi-year plan has been established to produce the technical documentation and get the necessary regulatory approvals for the LBT Synchronization solution.

With the advent of System LBT, it may be the case that additional spectrum, once thought to be the only solution for European RFID, may not be necessary after all. The new LBT synchronization solution employs a well-chosen channel plan, dense-reader operation and high-performance network control to achieve performance parity with North American RFID systems.