An Adaptive Memoryless Tag Anti-Collision Protocol
for RFID Networks*
Jihoon Myung and Wonjun Lee
Dept of Computer Science and Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
wlee@korea.ac.kr
Abstract— Tag collision arbitration for passive RFID tags is sig-
nificant for fast identification. This paper presents an adaptive
memoryless tag anti-collision protocol which is an improvement
on the query tree protocol. To identify tags efficiently, we use
information about tags the reader already know. We evaluate how
many collisions can be reduced by the proposed protocol over the
query tree protocol.
Keywords- RFID, tag anti-collision, tag identification.
I. INTRODUCTION
Radio frequency identification (RFID) system is an auto-
matic identification system. A RFID reader recognizes objects
through wireless communications with tags which have an
unique ID and information, and are attached to objects. The
reader must be able to identify tags as quickly as possible.
However, signals of readers or tags collide because they com-
municate over the shared wireless channel and collisions inter-
fere with fast identification. The reader may not recognize all
objects because of collisions. Therefore, anti-collision protocols
which reduce collisions and identify tags regardless of the oc-
currence of collisions are required.
Collisions are divided into reader collisions and tag colli-
sions [1]. Reader collisions occur where neighboring readers
interrogate a tag simultaneously and confuse it. Tag collisions
mean that more than one tags try to respond to a reader at the
same time and make the reader recognize no tags. Reader colli-
sions can be easily resolved because RFID readers can detect
collisions and communicate with one another [2]. Especially,
since low-functional passive tags cannot figure out neighboring
tags or detect collisions, tag anti-collision protocols are impor-
tant for identification ability of RFID systems.
Tag anti-collision protocols can be categorized into aloha
based protocols and tree based protocols. Aloha based tag
anti-collision protocols such as aloha, slotted aloha, and frame
slotted aloha [3] reduce the probability of the occurrence of tag
collisions how tags respond at the distinct time. Aloha’s tags
randomly select their response time and slotted aloha’s tags can
respond in the beginning of a timeslot which is a certain time
interval. Frame slotted aloha which shows the best performance
of aloha based protocols configures a frame with continual
timeslots. As a tag transmits its ID only at a timeslot every frame,
the frame slotted aloha reduces collisions. Aloha based proto-
cols, however, cannot perfectly prevent collisions. In addition,
*
This work was funded by SK Telecom under Contract Number KU-R0405721 to Korea University.
they have the serious problem that a tag may not be identified
for a long time so called tag starvation. The tree based tag
anti-collision protocols such as the binary tree protocol [3][4]
and the query tree protocol [5] do not cause tag starvation
though they have relatively long identification delay. They split
the group of colliding tags into two subgroups until the reader
recognizes the IDs of tags without collisions. In the binary tree
protocol, tags maintain a counter with a random number gen-
erator. The colliding tags are split according to a randomly
selected number. The tags which select 0 transmit their IDs.
Tags are required to have functionalities of managing the
counter and the random number generator.
The query tree protocol is the deterministic tag anti-collision
protocol. A reader sends a query of a prefix and tags which have
the ID to match the prefix respond. A prefix of the reader has the
decision power about splitting the colliding tags. Because tags
need not to have additional memory except the ID, the query
tree protocol is called the memoryless protocol. It is an advan-
tage to require low-functional tags, which is more cost-effective.
However, since it uses prefixes, the performance is sensitive to
the distribution of IDs of tags which a reader is going to recog-
nize. There are variants of the query tree protocol in order to
reduce the identification delay [5][6], but they simply focus on
shortening time taken for transmitting the tag’s ID. Any re-
searches do not reduce the number of collisions. For this reason,
we propose an adaptive memoryless protocol for RFID tag
collision arbitration while drawing from the query tree protocol.
The essential elements of the adaptive memoryless protocol
are the query insertion procedure and the query deletion pro-
cedure. To identify tags efficiently they generate or do away
with prefixes which are obtained from the past processes of tag
identification. A tag does not need additional functions except
matching a prefix of a query with its ID. We focus our attention
on decreasing the number of collisions. A collision makes both
the communication overhead and the transmission delay of a
reader and tags have lost their usefulness. The less signals of
tags collide, the faster a reader recognizes tags. The simulation
result shows that our proposed protocol suppresses the occur-
rence of collisions and reduces the total delay for identifying all
the tags while preserves low communication overhead.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II re-
views the query tree protocol. Section III describes our adaptive
memoryless tag anti-collision protocol. In Section IV, the per-

Figure 1. The query tree
formance analysis including the derivations of several major
equations referred to in the analysis will be explicated. Finally
the conclusions of the paper will be drawn in Section V.
II. QUERY TREE PROTOCOL
The query tree is a data structure for representing prefixes
which is sent by the reader in the query tree protocol. A reader
identifies tags through consecutive communications with tags.
The query tree protocol consists of rounds. In each round, the
reader transmits a query and tags respond with their IDs. The
query has a prefix. Only tags of which IDs match the prefix
respond. When only a tag answers, the reader successfully
recognizes the tag. When more than one tags answer, responses
collide and the reader cannot get any information about the tags.
The reader, however, can know the existence of tags to have ID
which match the prefix. For identifying tags which lead to the
collision, the reader tries to query with 1-bit longer prefixes in
next rounds. The reader has a queue Q which maintains prefixes.
The queue Q is initialized by 0 and 1. The reader deques a prefix
from the queue Q and transmits a query every round. If the
prefix p0p1…pi is the collision prefix, the reader enques the
prefix p0p1…pi0 and prefix p0p1…pi1 into the queue Q. The
reader continues the operation until the queue Q is empty. By
extending the prefixes, the reader can recognize all the tags.
A node in the query tree corresponds with a round that the
reader transmits a prefix and tags respond. Nodes are catego-
rized as follows:
• Collision node: Responses cause the collision. The
reader does not identify any tags, but it detects the col-
lision.
• Identified node: Only a tag responds. The reader suc-
cessfully identifies the tag’s ID.
• No-response node: No tags match the prefix. There is
no response.
A collision node has two children nodes as shown in Fig. 1 of
which the query tree is created by identifying three tags which
have IDs of 010, 011, and 100. A Left child node has the prefix
which is added 0 to the last of the prefix of the parent node. On
the other hand, a right child node has the prefix which is added 1
to the last of the prefix of the parent node. Thus, all intermediate
nodes in the query tree are collision nodes and all leaf nodes are
either identified nodes or no-response nodes. The delay of
identification of tags is mostly affected by the collision period
which is the sum of delays of collision nodes. Therefore, re-
ducing the number of collision nodes can improve identification
ability of the reader.
III. ADAPTIVE MEMORYLESS TAG ANTI-COLLISION
PROTOCOL
Since the queue Q is initialized by 0 and 1 in the query tree
protocol, the reader has the long collision period. As the number
of tags is increased, the length of the ID gets longer, and the IDs
of tags are further similar, and as a result, the collision period is
larger. To shorten the collision period, our proposed adaptive
memoryless tag anti-collision protocol uses information which
is acquired during the last identification process. The reader
maintains not only the queue Q but also a candidate queue CQ.
Before the process of identification, the reader initializes the
queue Q with the candidate queue CQ which stores prefixes
from the last process of identification. The candidate queue CQ
manages prefixes with the query insertion procedure and the
query deletion procedure.
A. Query Insertion
The candidate queue CQ stores prefixes of all leaf nodes of
the query tree, that is, identified nodes and no-response nodes.
The candidate queue CQ makes use of the prefixes of identified
nodes for fast re-recognizing the identified tags as well as pre-
fixes of no-response nodes for identifying the new tags. Identi-
fied tags are recognized with prefixes of identified nodes with
no collision or only a very few collisions. If a new tag which
matches a prefix of an identified node comes into the identifi-
cation range of the reader, it decreases the number of collision
nodes to use prefixes of identified nodes. A new tag of which ID
does not match a prefix of an identified node is quickly identi-
fied with prefixes of no-response nodes by the reader. Because
all leaf nodes of the query tree are either identified nodes or
no-response nodes, the reader can identify all tags quickly.
B. Query Deletions
The collision node of which prefix is p0p1…pi has two child
nodes as follows: 1) a collision node and a collision node, 2) a
collision node and an identified node, 3) a collision node and a
no-response node, and 4) an identified node and an identified
node. As tags move out of the identification range of the reader,
two child nodes of a collision node change their states as fol-
lows.
• An identified node and a no-response node: A tag which
responds to either the prefix p0p1…pi0 or the prefix
p0p1…pi1 is successfully recognized by the reader. Be-
cause there is no tag which has the prefix of the
no-response node, the reader can also identify the tag
with the prefix p0p1…pi without a collision. Because the
node of the prefix p0p1…pi is the identified node, there is
no necessity of having child nodes.
• A no-response node and a no-response node: There are
no tags which respond to the prefix p0p1…pi0 and the
 Figure 1. The identification delay
prefix p0p1…pi1. Therefore, tags which have the prefix
p0p1…pi do not reside in the range of the reader. The
node of the prefix p0p1…pi is the no-response node and
needs not to have child nodes.
Due to the query insertion procedure, the size of the queue Q
is extending and the length of prefixes in the queue Q are in-
creasing over time. Unnecessary no-response nodes disturb the
fast identification. To cope with this problem, if the node of the
prefix p0p1…pi0 and the node of the prefix p0p1…pi1 are either
the identification node and the no-response node or the
no-response node and the no-response node, the candidate
queue CQ stores the prefix p0p1…pi instead of the prefix
p0p1…pi0 and the prefix p0p1…pi1. The query deletion procedure
continues until there do not exist two nodes which have the
same parent node, and which are either the identification node
and the no-response node or the no-response node and the
no-response node. By the query deletion procedure, the candi-
date queue CQ can eliminate prefixes of unnecessary
no-response nodes.
IV. IDENTIFICATION DELAY ANALYSIS
We define the performance of the tag anti-collision protocol
with the delay of identifying all tags. The total delay dtotal(n) for
identifying n tags is
d total ( n) = ∑ (d p + d response ) ≈ T ( n) ⋅ d round
p∈S
where S is the set of prefixes for n tags, dp is the delay of sending
the query of the prefix p, dresponse is the delay of responding with
the tag’s ID, dround is the average delay of all rounds, and T(n) is
the number of prefixes. The total delay is determined by the
number of prefixes, T(n).
To evaluate the total delay of identifying all tags, we meas-
ure the number of prefixes, T(n) of the proposed protocol
compared to the query tree protocol when tag has no movement,
when new tags move in, and when some tags move out. There
have been 350 tags and new 50 tags move in or 50 tags move out
Figure 2. The composition of the identification delay
of the identification range of the reader. All the tags have ran-
domly selected 96 bits IDs. Fig. 2 shows the identification delay
as the number of tags is increased. The more tags are, the faster
the adaptive memoryless tag anti-collision protocol. To evaluate
the performance of the query insertion procedure and the query
deletion procedure, we measure the composition of states of
transmitted prefixes in each case as shown in Fig. 3. The query
insertion procedure distinguishably reduces collision nodes and
the query deletion procedure eliminates no-response nodes.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an adaptive memoryless tag anti-collision
protocol for passive RFID tags has been proposed and evaluated.
We develop a novel and enhanced query tree protocol to reduce
the identification delay by using prefixes which do not cause
collisions. The simulation results show that the query insertion
procedure and the query deletion procedure of our tag
anti-collision protocol largely diminish the number of collisions.
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