KR100864938B1 - Middleware system for applying RFID appllication and method for processing the same - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a middleware system and an operating method for supporting an RFID application that supports the development of RFID-specific applications and supports the easy modeling process of RFID business events and RFID business tasks, thereby increasing the efficiency of production and management of RFID applications. In the middleware system having an RFID middleware layer, configured between an application layer and an RFID middleware layer, by combining the RFID event received through the RFID middleware layer with reference data and business rules RFID business events that can be utilized by RFID application applications, have a visual environment that supports the input of various attributes, and support the modeling of RFID business events and RFID business tasks required by RFID application applications. Includes the Nice Aware Framework (RFID BizAF).

RFID, RFID Middleware, Middleware Platform, RFID BizAL, RFID BizAF

Description

Middleware system for applying RFID application and its operation method {Middleware system for applying RFID appllication and method for processing the same}

1 is a block diagram of an RFID middleware system for supporting various applications according to the present invention

2 is a block diagram showing the relationship between the activities of the RFID business wear language according to the present invention

3A to 3G are schematic diagrams illustrating DTDs of activities of an RFID business wear language according to the present invention.

4A to 4L are screen configuration diagrams at each step of the RFID business case tool according to the present invention.

5 is a flow chart illustrating an RFID business event generation modeling process according to the present invention.

Explanation of symbols for the main parts of the drawings

100. RFID Business Aware Language Block (RFID BizAL)

200. RFID Business Event Assistant Block (RFID BizEA)

300. RFID Business Task Assistant Block (RFID BizTA)

400. RFID Business Case Tool Block (RFID BizCT)

500. RFID Business Aware Framework Block (RFID BizAF)

600. Leaders Tier

700. RFID Middleware Layer

800. Middleware Layer

The present invention relates to an RFID middleware platform. Specifically, the present invention relates to an RFID middleware platform, and supports an RFID application that supports RFID application events and an easy modeling process of RFID business events and RFID business tasks. A middleware system and a method of operating the same.

In general, an RFID system basically includes an RFID tag attached to an object and containing information that can be distinguished from the object, an RFID reader for recognizing information contained in the tag, and a host system for processing tag information recognized from the reader.

The host system refers to an overall software system that processes tag recognition information recognized by an RFID reader and is utilized by an application program. Among them, RFID middleware plays a role of supporting interworking between an existing application system and RFID hardware.

RFID middleware is performed in an environment where continuous service is difficult due to its characteristics.

RFID middleware is performed in a secure location such as a data center and does not have a skilled operator. That is, the RFID middleware is performed in an environment exposed to the general user and various peripheral machines, not a separate environment for smoothly executing a computer system such as a factory, a warehouse, a store, and the like. Therefore, there is a high possibility that a failure occurs in the reader and edge manager constituting the RFID middleware system.

First, since the reader is a system that directly reads information from the tag, the reader may be completely exposed to the external environment in the field. For example, while carrying a load, accidents in other vehicles or containers can cause serious damage to the reader system.

The fact that a leader has caused a disability can be checked in several ways.

If the reader that caused the failure is found, there is no way to take over the job of the leader, so if there is no major problem with the system itself, there may be a way to restart the system.

If the problem cannot be solved by rebooting the system, notify the technician or administrator as soon as possible to recover the system.

For example, a forklift may accidentally impact an edge manager in a warehouse, causing the edge manager to fail.In order for the RFID middleware system to continue to service, the edge manager failed to manage the edge manager. It is required to substitute for the processing.

In addition, in an environment in which RFID middleware is performed, there is a possibility that no operator for managing the middleware professionally exists. Therefore, it is desirable to automatically provide the task of delegating the processing of the corresponding leaders to another edge manager in the system without the operator's intervention as much as possible.

However, the RFID middleware system of the prior art does not efficiently deal with such a problem.

And the ultimate goal of developing and standardizing RFID technology is to make it more convenient and beneficial for users. In addition to technology development, it is important to see how this technology fits into the business domain, what are the problems in the application phase, and how to address it.

To this end, empirical experiments and commercialization of various applications using RFID are being conducted in various fields.

RFID middleware for such an application performs a preprocessing function in the form of data of interest to the application through filtering, aggregation, event generation, and the like for the RFID data generated from the reader.

However, RFID middleware does not always deliver events in the form required by the application. In order to solve this problem, there is a need for a function of processing RFID events recognized from RFID middleware and converting them into high-level event types required by an application.

Currently, most RFID middlewares perform only basic functions of delivering recognized RFID events to an application without processing them. In addition to RFID events, some RFID middlewares additionally perform a function of recognizing and delivering sensor data to an application.

However, some RFID middleware provides a basic function that combines events and expresses them in a high-level form that can be utilized by an application. For most RFID middleware, application developers develop logic that uses events collected from RFID middleware. There is a problem that needs to be done.

The development of such an RFID application will be further described.

In order to apply RFID technology to a system, an application must be developed considering the characteristics of RFID.

In the RFID environment, a large amount of tag data is collected and continuously brought in continuously. RFID applications must classify the necessary information from such data and process it efficiently in real time. RFID middlewares are being developed to efficiently handle large quantities of RFID events occurring in a short time.

However, the value of RFID events coming out of RFID middleware is still just a tag value, so RFID applications must take these values and convert them into meaningful values in their applications. To this end, it is necessary to analyze RFID events and communicate with external information servers such as EPC Information Service (EPCIS) and Object Name Service (ONS) for each tag value to get the corresponding property values.

RFID application developers need to be aware of all the interfaces to multiple external systems for this process, as well as knowledge of communication protocols and programming for multithreaded processing.

Therefore, the previous RFID middleware does not provide an effective RFID application development environment, and it is difficult to efficiently manage and manage the problems required by the RFID middleware system.

The present invention is to solve such problems to provide an efficient problem coping capability and management function required in the RFID middleware system, and to provide an effective RFID application development environment, and to newly implement the RFID middleware platform to support the development of RFID-specific applications. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a middleware system and an operation method thereof for supporting an RFID application which increases the efficiency of production and management of an RFID application by supporting an easy modeling process of an RFID business event and an RFID business task.

The present invention provides a framework (RFID BizAF) that processes an RFID business specification described by RFIID BizAL and delivers the defined RFID business event to the requesting RFID application application or performs a predefined task. There is a purpose.

The present invention provides a middleware platform for supporting RFID applications that enable more efficient definition of business logic by enabling higher-level RFID business events using EPCs provided through RFID middleware using RFID BizAF. Its purpose is.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a new RFID business event generation modeling process for efficiently extracting business events for application development using RFID BizAF framework block (RFID BizAF).

In order to achieve the above object, a middleware system for supporting an RFID application includes an RFID businessware framework (RFID BizAF) configured between an application layer and an RFID middleware layer. An RFID BizAL block comprising a language for combining an RFID event received through an RFID middleware layer with reference data and business rules to define an RFID business event that an RFID application application can utilize; RFID Business Event Assistant (RFID BizEA) block for agent-based generation of RFID business events defined through a Business Aware Language (RFID BizAL) block; Delivers RFID business events from the RFID Business Event Assistant block receive An RFID business task assistant (RFID BizTA) block for managing execution of a predefined RFID business task based on an agent; an RFID business event generated from the RFID BizEA block and an RFID business task assistant (RFID BizTA) And an RFID business case tool (RFID BizCT) block that supports modeling an RFID business task executed in the block into a form required by the RFID application application.

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The operating method of the middleware system for supporting the RFID application according to the present invention is related to the business context of the reader to be used by the RFID application to be developed by an RFID businessware framework (RFID BizAF) configured between the application layer and the RFID middleware layer. Extracting objects; determining reference information associated with the extracted objects; extracting and describing a business rule related to an RFID event required for operation of an application using the extracted tagged object and reference information associated with the extracted object; Defining a processing flow between the recognized tagged objects and describing the determined logical leaders as physical leaders, and mapping and describing a business event specification (BESpec) according to the business rules and processing order of the derived tagged objects; RFI by doing; And generating a D business event.

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Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of a middleware platform for supporting an RFID application according to the present invention will be described in detail.

Features and advantages of the middleware platform for supporting the RFID application according to the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description of each embodiment below.

1 is a block diagram of an RFID middleware system for supporting various applications according to the present invention.

The present invention combines and processes various reference data supplied from an external information server as well as RFID events through the RFID Business-Aware Framework (RFID BizAF) to generate richer high-level business events. will be.

In order to reduce the maintenance cost of the application and the time to develop the RFID application, an effective environment for developing the RFID application without the need for deep knowledge and dependence on the RFID technology is required.

According to the present invention, the application developer can more conveniently define various processing processes that were previously written in a code using the RFID Business-Aware Language (RFID BizAL) according to the present invention.

Defined business events are processed through the RFID Business Aware Framework, and as a result, the developer can receive only the information necessary for the application from the middleware and develop the application using it.

As such, the RFID BizAL and the RFID BizAF constituting the middleware platform for supporting the RFID application according to the present invention can provide an effective RFID application application development environment.

For example, common rules exist between different applications belonging to a specific domain, but there is overlapping development of common rules due to different ways of defining rules in each application. There is an additional need for customizing rules in the appropriate format. To solve this problem, the middleware platform for supporting an RFID application according to the present invention provides a reusability of rules between different applications belonging to a specific domain by using a single RFID BizAL.

In the middleware platform for supporting an RFID application according to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, an RFID businessware framework (RFID Business-) between an application layer 800 and an RFID middleware layer 700 is provided. The Aware Framework (RFID BizAF) 500 is configured to combine and process various reference data supplied from an external information server as well as RFID events to generate richer high-level RFID business events.

An RFID Business-Aware Framework (RFID BizAF) 500 is added to the application in the form of a library.

The configuration of the RFID Business-Aware Framework (RFID BizAF) 500 is as follows.

A language that supports the definition of high-level RFID business events that RFID application applications can utilize by combining low-level RFID events received from the reader layer 600 through the RFID middleware layer 700 with reference data and business rules. RFID Business-Aware Language (RFID BizAL) block 100 which defines a connection between RFID business events and RFID business tasks, and provides a business event model that reflects the characteristics of RFID technology. RFID Business Event Assistant (RFID BizEA) makes it easy to develop RFID applications by managing agent-based generation of defined RFID business events and by providing communication with RFID middleware and reference data servers. Block 200 and RFID Business Event An RFID Business Task Assistant (RFID BizTA) block that receives an RFID business event of the assistant assistant block 200 and manages execution of a predefined RFID business task based on an agent, and performs mail transmission and event storage functions. And a RFID Business Case Tool (RFID BizCT) block that allows for easy modeling of RFID business events and RFID business tasks required by RFID applications with a visual environment that supports the input of various attributes. It consists of 500.

Here, the RFID event delivered from the RFID middleware layer 700 to the application layer 800 has a form such as an electronic product code (EPC) consisting of numbers, and is simply header information and company code. Because it consists only of product code and serial number, detailed information such as product name, recognition location, etc., which is logical information related to RFID event, cannot be known.

In addition, the RFID business event generated by the RFID Business Event Assistant (RFID BizEA) block 200 can be used directly in the business logic. I can see that.

The RFID Business-Aware Framework (RFID BizAF) 500 according to the present invention described above defines an RFID BizAL analysis module, RFID BizAL and ECSpec (Event Cycle Specification) for business event analysis and data conversion. It includes a translation module for converting the data and an ECReport (Event Cycle Report) analysis module.

When the logic for generating RFID business events is transferred to the RFID Business-Aware Framework (RFID BizAF) 500 using RFID BizAL, this content is read and analyzed. Needs to be.

That is, since there are many elements in the RFID BizAL, it is necessary to classify each element and connect the process for each element. For this purpose, a module for interpreting the RFID BizAL is provided.

The RFID BizAL analysis module identifies the information to generate the most basic ALE Spec from the business event, and then classifies additional processing process so that it can be used when one business event processing process is activated.

A translation module for exchanging information with the ALE Manager is provided to perform the following functions.

The lower layer that performs functions in conjunction with RFID BizAF (RFID Business-Aware Framework) is ALE Manager (Application Level Event Manager).

The ALE Manager sends and receives information using the standardized interface of EPC Global. In order to receive the necessary information from RFID BizAF, the ALE Manager must use this standardized interface. In the interface standard, there are ECSpec (Event Cycle Specification) and ECReport, so ECSpec defines necessary information, and ECReport has information read from actual reader.

In RFID BizAF, necessary information should be converted to ECSpec format and delivered to ALE Manager. For this purpose, a translation module is provided for conversion between RFID BizAL and ECSpec definition.

In addition, the resulting ECReport is equipped with an ECReport analysis module for extracting only necessary parts defined in RFID BizAL (RFID Business-Aware Language) and delivering it to the process.

In addition, the RFID Business-Aware Framework (RFID BizAF) 500 according to the present invention includes a communication module for communication with an external application. That is, since ECSpec and ECReport are information types of ALE manager, for actual communication, communication module with ALE manager corresponding to the corresponding communication protocol is provided.

In addition, in order to use the data of the Electronic Product Code Information Service (EPCIS) it is necessary to communicate in accordance with the communication protocol used in the information provider and information is also exchanged using the interface. To this end, an access module according to information type and protocol of an external element is provided, and this access module performs a function by interworking with a specific processing part of a business event processing process.

First, an RFID Business-Aware Language (RFID BizAL) block 100 constituting a middleware platform for supporting an RFID application according to the present invention will be described in detail.

The business event specification (BESpec) of the RFID Business-Aware Language (RFID BizAL) block 100 is composed of a variable part and an activity part defining a process.

In the variable part, a variable used in event-related data delivery or intermediate processing is defined. In addition to the general type, the variable supports a unique RFID type.

In the Activity section, you define detailed activities for generating an RFID business event from an RFID event.

First, the variable part of the RFID business wear language will be described.

When the tag information is read, it goes through several processes according to the Business Event Specification (BESpec) to define the business event already defined.

Each process is performed independently and uses variables as parameters to pass the necessary information between each process. In each process, the results are stored in variables or used as inputs.

Variables support not only general types such as int but also types specific to RFID system, which increases the ease of use of BESpec. For example, the ALE engine provides a data type, such as a tag list, that can store tag lists that are passed during an event cycle at one time, making it easier to read and write in a BESpec.

Variables in the RFID business wear language classify basic types, RFID-specific types, and list types.

First, basic types support data types that are supported by general programming languages. These data types are used for calculations, or for data storage during conditional processing or final event generation. Supported data types are int and string types, and operations between data types are handled differently by type.

In addition, the RFID specialized type is a unique type used only for an RFID system, and in an RFID system, there are uniquely used data such as EPC, Tag, RawHex, and RawDecimal. Improves readability and ease of use.

EPC may use the entire code, or only some of the code. To support these features, the EPC data type also provides a way to refer to the entire code and to use internal sub-elements.

Developers can easily define BESpecs by using EPC data types directly or by using a partial approach as needed. For example, if you want to know the production date for an individual product, you can use the variable directly because you need the whole EPC. If you want to know the name, specification, etc. of a specific product type, you only need the class code of the EPC. You can easily access parts of your code using methods like .class'.

And because the list type is due to the nature of RFID, several tags in the range are read at once and transferred to the list when reading the tag information using the reader. It is for convenience of data processing depending on the characteristics.

This list type is used in the extended form for all defined basic types and RFID-specific types. If you set the list option when declaring another type, a list of that type can be created and used.

This section describes the activities of the RFID Business Aware Language.

In order to generate business events, ALE needs to read information from the leader and exchange information with EPCIS or ONS. These actions can be performed independently without interfering with each other, and the present invention defines an activity as follows to define this independent process.

Activities basically define the interaction with ALE, EPCIS or ONS. In addition to defining interactions with external systems, there are additional activities for defining internal processing and event delivery.

Place these activities in a sequence of processing steps to generate business events.

Table 1 shows the types of activities related to the occurrence of RFID business wear language events. Of course, there are also activities of tasks that need to be performed as a result of event occurrences.

Kinds name Explanation Primitive ALE Get information about tags from ALE Primitive EPCIS Get detailed information about EPC Primitive ONS Obtain the address of the EPCIS that stores detailed information about the EPC Contain List Iteration over the list type Contain Event Generate events based on conditions Primitive Compute Arithmetic Operations Processing Primitive Terminate Stop process processing

Activities are divided into activities that can have different activities inside and activities that cannot have primitive activities.

For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the list activity may include other activities such as a compute activity or an EPCIS activity.

2 is a block diagram showing the relationship between the activities of the RFID business wear language according to the present invention.

The activity part of the RFID business wear language will be described in detail.

3A to 3G are diagrams illustrating DTDs of activities of an RFID business wear language according to the present invention.

First, ALE activity defines communication with ALE engine. ALE engine provides ECSpec so that application can register necessary event and generates and delivers ECReport as a result of registered ECSpec.

ALE activities define which ECSpecs to create and register in the ALE engine and how to handle the resulting ECReport. The ECSpec consists of a list of readers to read tag information therein, a boundary to set a time to read a tag, and a reportSpec to set which tag to read. The overall configuration of the ECSpec is as shown in FIG. 3A.

The definition of ECSpec is to define the needs of developers, so BESpec is provided without any omission so that the function can be directly controlled. However, some minor changes can be made to make minor modifications for convenience and result handling, and the rest are set by the developer.

And when ECReport comes over as a result of ECSpec, it expands the output part to handle this. Each group sets the data to be included in the report. This result can be set in a list type variable. In the following activities, you can use the data set in this variable to check the data in ECReport.

The detailed syntax follows the standard document for EPCglobal's ALE interface, and the expanded part is as in Figure 3b, which shows the DTD of the ALE activity.

Second, the EPCIS activity stores detailed information of products corresponding to the EPC. The EPCIS provides an interface for making this information available to other systems.

RFID Business Aware Framework Block (RFID BizAF) generates and delivers business events. In this process, it may be necessary to obtain detailed information about the code read from the tag. However, the saving process after processing is done after executing business logic. Therefore, among the functions provided by EPCIS, only functions related to inquiry are available without supporting functions related to saving or modifying.

In addition, EPC and EPC classes can be used to generate events, so they are supported. Accordingly, the EPCIS activity provides the interface shown in Table 2 and the DTD for the XML grammar of the EPCIS activity is shown in FIG. 3C.

Operation Explanation getAttributeDataEPC Query attribute information for EPC getSchemasOfEPC Query schema information for EPCdp getAttributeDataOfEPCClassCode Query attribute information for EPC Class getSchemasOfEPCClassCode Query schema information for EPC Class

Third, ONS (Object Name Service) is a system that informs which EPC Information Service (EPCIS) the detailed information of the product corresponding to the EPC, the interface provided by ONS is shown in Table 3.

 In the ONS activity, only the search for the address of the EPCIS in which the detailed information of the product corresponding to the event is required is provided. Only searchEPCIS is provided in the definition, and the defined XML grammar is expressed in the DTD as shown in FIG.

Operation Explanation serchEPCIS Returns the address of the EPCIS containing the EPC information. insertEPCIS Stores the address of the EPCIS containing the EPC information. deleteEPCIS Delete the address of the EPCIS that contains the EPC information.

Fourth, the List activity is provided to perform the following tasks.

Due to the characteristics of the RFID system, the results read from the reader are transferred to the list. To facilitate the processing of the list, the RFID Business Aware Framework Block (RFID BizAF) provides a list type.

However, there may be times when you need to perform individual operations on data stored in lists. In this case, the List activity is provided to allow different processing for each item stored in the list.

The List activity receives as input a variable of type List, which contains a list of other activities. In execution, the operation is repeated as many times as the data set in the input List variable.

The DTD (Document Type Definition) for the XML grammar of the List activity is the same as in FIG. 3E.

The List activity starts with the list tag and has two variables as attributes.

In source, a variable of type list is defined and processed as many times as there are data in the variable. In assign, a specific value is assigned among list-type data and can be used in internal activities. Inside, you can define other activities.

Fifth, the Compute activity must process received RFID events to generate business events, in which case arithmetic or logic processing is required to support these processing tasks.

Compute activities enable arithmetic and logic operations between variables that are supported by common programming languages. These operations allow developers to define the intermediate processing required to generate business events.

The DTD (Document Type Definition) for the XML grammar of the Compute activity is as in FIG. 3F.

Sixth, Event activity defines event creation according to condition.

Event activities are divided into three parts according to the general event format. The first part is a condition statement. The condition statement determines whether or not to raise the corresponding event by using a formula and executes the corresponding event activity only when the condition is satisfied.

The second part of the Event activity is the action statement. The action statement defines the additional processing required to generate an event. For example, when a reader is installed in a doorway and a person opens and closes the door, only the authorized user needs to know the name of the tag that is read by the door reader only if he or she is authenticated. do. For this case, other activities can be used in the action clause.

And finally, the third part is the generate statement. The generate statement actually generates an RFID business event. The generated RFID business event is delivered to the application according to the defined protocol. At this time, the RFID business event can be used by the application by delivering data related to the event in addition to the event name. The DTD (Document Type Definition) for the XML grammar of the event activity is the same as in FIG. 3G.

In the following, the RFID Business Case Tool (RFID BizCT) block 400 of FIG. 1 will be described in detail.

4A to 4L are screen configuration diagrams at each step of the RFID business case tool according to the present invention.

The RFID Business Case Tool (RFID BizCT) block 400 is a tool for easily modeling RFID business events and RFID business tasks, and has a visual environment that supports convenient modeling and input of various attributes.

The RFID Business Case Tool (RFID BizCT) block 400 is a tool that defines an activity expressed in a Business Aware Language (RFID BizAL) in the form of a Graphical User Interface (GUI), and includes a Navigator and a Main View. It has windows such as (MainView), Activity View (Property View), Property View (PropertyView) and Message View (MessageView).

First, the File window that composes the Navigator shows the information of the files in each folder on the user's computer. You can see the files of BESpec in each folder. The Model window shows the activities that make up the BESpec.

The user can drag the activity represented in the model window and drop it in the main view.

The main view shows the BESpec in the form of XML (eXtensible Markup Language), or on the screen in the form of a GUI.

The Activity View shows a list of available activities and tasks. You can model BESpecs by dragging and dropping them into the Diagram View of the MainView.

Property view expresses detailed property value of each activity, and message view expresses error message and notification message.

Screen configuration and characteristics of each step of the RFID Business Case Tool (RFID BizCT) will be described.

First, FIG. 4A shows an initial screen of an application executed, and displays windows such as a navigator, a main view, an activity view, a property view, a property view, and a message view. do.

4B illustrates a process of registering, modifying, and deleting a reader. When a reader list dialog is displayed and a register is selected, a register reader dialog is displayed. Enter the name of the reader you wish to register, press OK, and press OK in the leader list to complete the registration. To modify and delete, select the leader from the leader list and perform the same.

4C illustrates a process of creating a new file. When New is selected from the File menu, a screen for creating a new file is displayed in the main view.

4D illustrates a process of adding, modifying, and deleting variables. When the document icon of the main view is clicked, the Variables dialog window appears. If you press the Add button to add a variable, the AddVariable dialog window appears. After inputting the property of the variable to add, press OK to add the variable. When modifying or deleting a variable, you can modify or delete it by selecting the variable from the table in the Variables dialog window.

In addition, FIG. 4E illustrates a process of creating an activity, moving an activity, and deleting an activity. In the diagram view of the main view, drag and drop each activity in the ActivityView to refer to "Drop Activity Here". When you place it, the activity is created and added to the BESpec.

You can move an activity by clicking on it and dropping it in a different location. Clicking on an activity and pressing the Delete key deletes the selected activity.

Then drag a task activity and drop it on the event activity, which adds the task to the event activity.

4F to 4J illustrate a process of setting activity properties.

First, FIG. 4F illustrates an ALE attribute input process. When the ALE diagram of the MainView is double-clicked with a mouse, an ALE dialog appears and LogicalReaders, BoundarySpecs, and ReportSpecs can be set.

4G illustrates an event property setting process. When a user double-clicks an event diagram of the main view with an mouse, an event dialog appears and conditions and generate can be set.

4H shows List property setting. When the user double-clicks the list diagram of the main view with the mouse, the following list dialog appears and the attribute can be set.

4I illustrates an EPCIS property setting process. When the EPCIS diagram of the main view is double-clicked with a mouse, the EPCIS dialog box appears as shown below and the expression can be set.

4J illustrates a mail task property setting process. When the mail task diagram is double-clicked with a mouse, the MailTask dialog box shown below appears and each property value can be set.

4K illustrates an activity copying process. If a user drags an activity to be copied from the model view of the Navigator window and places it in a copy position of the main view, the corresponding activity is copied and the attribute values of the activity are copied as it is.

4L illustrates a view / source conversion process. When an activity is added to a diagram view of a main view and a value is set, pressing the Source tab generates a corresponding BESpec. You can also add, modify, or delete activities in the Source pane, set new values, and click the Diagram View tab to create a modified diagram.

Hereinafter, the RFID business event generation modeling using the middleware platform for supporting the RFID application according to the present invention will be described.

5 is a flow chart illustrating an RFID business event generation modeling process according to the present invention.

The RFID Business-aware Framework (RFID BizAF) is located at the layer between RFID middleware and applications to support the development of RFID applications.

It is responsible for processing RFID events generated by RFID middleware and interacting with other systems, and generating and delivering only the result values corresponding to application conditions as RFID business events.

Application development using RFID Business Aware Framework Block (RFID BizAF) requires effective business event extraction.

In the present invention, the RFID business event is generated by the following steps.

First, the number and placement positions of logical readers to be used by the RFID application to be developed are determined.

In RFID technology, readers and tags that are hardware are important. In particular, leaders need to make clear decisions because they affect many parts of the application.

In addition, the business context of the extracted leader is defined (S502).

The leader's main role depends on where the leader is placed. The key role the leader plays is defined as the business context. Here, leaders with similar roles are grouped together to increase work efficiency by reducing repetitive tasks.

Subsequently, the RFID application performs an automated process when the tagged object is recognized. For this purpose, the RFID application extracts objects related to the business context of the reader.

In operation S504, it is determined what reference information is associated with the extracted objects.

Objects with RFID tags have unique identification information, which is converted to information in the form of simple numeric information including the location, time, and EPC where the event occurred during the middleware.

Since the EPC value alone cannot determine what the recognized object is, it is to determine what reference information is associated with the extracted objects by referring to the EPCIS in which the EPC detailed information is stored in order to become meaningful information.

Next, the extracted business rule related to the RFID event required for the operation of the application is extracted and described using the extracted tagged object and the reference information associated therewith (S505).

A declaration that defines or constrains a specific part of a business is called a business rule, which creates new knowledge based on the fact that it declares the truth about the business, the constraints that limit the user's or system's behavior, and whether any conditions are true Inference, a rule, corresponds to a business rule.

Recognizing multiple tags at the same time is one of the characteristics of RFID technology, and simultaneously defines processing flows between them for the efficiency of object recognition when several tagged objects of different types are recognized (S506).

When a person carries an item, whether or not the item is handled depends on the person's access rights, so the object to be processed first is the person. This step defines the tag processing order to prevent unnecessary tag processing operations.

It is also necessary to define the flow that handles tagged objects when they are recognized. Once the object is recognized, detailed information about the object should be obtained through ONS and EPCIS queries and the relevant business rules applied.

Next, the logical readers to be used by the RFID application to be developed are described in detail as physical readers (S507).

The RFID application needs to receive the RFID event of interest generated by the reader. To do this, it sets the physical elements necessary for the reader to operate and informs about the value to be received as a result.

The configuration information includes the time interval for reading the tag, the number of bits of the tag, and the filter to be applied. The setting is made for each logical leader determined in step S501, which is written in ECSpec in XML format and registered in the middleware.

When an application uses BizAF, it is described in BESpec as a trigger activity of BizAL, and BizAF registers it in middleware.

In addition, it describes by mapping to BESpec according to the business rules and processing order of the tagged objects derived in step S506 (S508).

When you register a BESpec with BizAF, BizAF generates a business event and delivers it to the RFID application when the stated business rule condition is true.

The present invention implements a new RFID middleware platform to support the development of RFID-specific applications and to support the easy modeling process of RFID business events and RFID business tasks to increase the efficiency of production and management of RFID applications.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that various changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

Therefore, the technical scope of the present invention should not be limited to the contents described in the embodiments, but should be defined by the claims.

The middleware platform for supporting the RFID application according to the present invention has the following effects.

First, the present invention has the effect of increasing the efficiency of production and management of RFID applications by newly implementing the RFID middleware platform to support the development of RFID-specific applications and to support the easy modeling process of RFID business events and RFID business tasks.

Second, application developers using ALE-based RFID middleware can design application logic based on RFID data using RFID BizAL and RFID BizAF.

Third, RFID BizAL and RFID BizAF according to the present invention provide an environment that can easily develop the application logic necessary for developers by solving the complexity and difficulty that can occur when writing a very persistent and massive RFID primitive event directly into code. .

Fourth, RFID BizAL and RFID BizAF according to the present invention supports the interworking of various RFID middleware that conforms to the ALE (Application Level Event) standard specification.

Therefore, if other RFID middleware complies with ALE standard specification, it can effectively convert RFID raw event into high-level business event through linkage with RFID BizAL and RFID BizAF.

This has the effect of allowing RFID middleware developers to develop RFID middleware with more extended functions by introducing RFID BizAL and RFID BizAF in their RFID middleware.

Fifth, by developing a single RFID Business-Aware Language, and describing the rules of the company used in the operation of the application as a business event, it is possible to increase the sharing or reuse of rules between different applications.

This means sharing rules between applications or exchanging knowledge between business partners.

This has the effect of improving the efficiency of application development by developing business events commonly required by several applications in a specific domain in the form of packages and reusing them in application development of the corresponding domain.

Claims (15)

In a middleware system having an RFID middleware layer, RFID BizAF (RFID BizAF) is formed between the Application Layer and the RFID middleware Layer, An RFID businessware language block (RFID BizAL) comprising a language for combining RFID events transmitted through the RFID middleware layer with reference data and business rules to define an RFID business event that an RFID application application can utilize; An RFID business event assistant (RFID BizEA) block for managing agent-based generation of an RFID business event defined through the RFID BizAL language block; An RFID business task assistant (RFID BizTA) block which receives an RFID business event from the RFID BizEA block and manages execution of a predefined RFID business task based on an agent; RFID business that supports modeling the RFID business event generated in the RFID BizEA block and the RFID business task executed in the RFID BizTA block in the form required by the RFID application. A middleware system for supporting RFID applications, including a case tool (RFID BizCT) block. The method of claim 1, wherein the RFID business event assistant (RFID BizEA) block, A middleware system for supporting an RFID application, characterized by providing a communication function with an RFID middleware and a reference data server. The method of claim 1, wherein the RFID business task assistant (RFID BizTA) block, A middleware system for supporting an RFID application, characterized in that to perform an external mail transmission and event storage. The method of claim 1, wherein the RFID business wear framework (RFID BizAF), An RFID BizAL analysis module for RFID business event analysis and data conversion defined in the RFID BizAL language block; A translation module for converting between the language of the RFID BizAL block and ECSpec definition, which is a standard interface of RFID middleware for transmitting and receiving necessary information about business events; The middleware system for supporting the RFID application, characterized in that it further comprises an ECReport analysis module for extracting only the necessary portion defined in the RFID BizAL language block (RFID BizAL) block for delivery to the process. The business event specification (BESpec) defined by the RFID business wear language (RFID BizAL) block, When the tag information is read, variables used as mediators to pass the necessary information between each processing performed independently according to the specification (BESpec) for defining the business event, and The middleware system for supporting an RFID application, characterized in that the activity consists of a detailed activity portion for generating an RFID business event from the RFID event. The method of claim 5, wherein the variable constituting the business event specification (BESpec), Data type supported by general programming language. It is a basic type used for calculation process or data storage for conditional statement processing or final event generation. RFID specialized types uniquely used in RFID systems such as EPC, Tag, RawHex, RawDecimal, A middleware system for supporting an RFID application, characterized in that it is configured as a list type to reduce the processing load on the list when the tag information is read at once when the tag information is read using a reader. The method of claim 5, wherein the activities constituting the business event specification (BESpec), An application level event (ALE) activity for acquiring information about a tag from an RFID middleware, EPCIS activities for obtaining detailed information about EPCs, An ONS activity to obtain the address of the EPCIS that stores detailed information about the EPC, List activity for iterating over list types, An Event activity for generating an event based on a condition, Compute activity for processing arithmetic operations, A middleware system for supporting an RFID application, characterized in that it comprises a Terminate activity ratio for stopping process processing. 8. The ALE activity of claim 7, wherein the ALE activity is one of activities constituting a language of the RFID BizAL block. To register an event that an application needs, provide an ECSpec including a list of readers to read tag information, a boundary to set a time to read a tag, and a reportSpec to set which tag to read. A middleware system for supporting RFID applications, which defines which ECSpecs are created and registered in the ALE engine that generates and delivers ECReports as a result of registered ECSpecs, and how to process the resulting ECReports. The EPCIS activity according to claim 7, wherein one of the activities constituting the business event specification (BESpec) is: A middleware system for supporting an RFID application, characterized in that an interface is provided so that detailed information of a corresponding product in an EPC can be used in another system. The method of claim 1, wherein the RFID BizCT block, Navigator to display the information of the files in each folder on the current user's computer, Shows BESpec in the form of XML or on the screen in the form of GUI. MainView supports editing in each form. ActivityView, which shows a list of available activities and tasks, PropertyView which represents detailed property value of each activity, A middleware system for supporting an RFID application, comprising windows, such as a MessageView, which displays error messages and notification messages. The method of claim 10, wherein the main view (MainView) of the RFID BizCT block, A screen for registering, modifying, and deleting a reader, a screen for creating a new file, Screen for adding, modifying, and deleting variables, screen for creating activities, moving activities, deleting activities, screen for setting activity properties, screen for copying activities, and view / source conversion. Middleware system for supporting an RFID application, characterized in that to provide a screen. By the RFID Business Aware Framework (RFID BizAF) configured between the application layer and the RFID middleware layer, Extracting objects related to the business context of the reader to be used by the RFID application to be developed; Determining reference information associated with the extracted objects; Extracting and describing a business rule related to an RFID event required for operation of an application by using the extracted tagged object and reference information associated with the extracted tagging object; Defining a processing flow between recognized tagged objects and describing the determined logical leaders as physical leaders; Mapping and describing a business event specification (BESpec) according to the derived business rules and processing order of tagged objects; and generating an RFID business event by performing a middleware system for supporting an RFID application. 13. The method of claim 12, prior to performing the step of extracting objects related to the business context of the leader, Determining the number and placement of logical readers to be used by the RFID application to be developed; Defining a business context of the extracted reader; operating method of a middleware system for supporting an RFID application. The method of claim 12, wherein in the step of mapping and describing the derived tagged objects according to the business rules and the processing order to the BESpec, When BESpec is registered with RFID BizAF, RFID BizAF supports RFID applications, which generate business events and deliver them to RFID applications when they meet the stated business rules. Method of operating a middleware system. The method of claim 12, wherein describing logical leaders as physical leaders comprises: In order to receive the RFID event of interest generated by the reader in the RFID application, information including the time interval for reading the tag, the number of bits of the tag, and the filter to be applied are set for the physical element necessary for the reader to operate. Operating method of the middleware system for supporting an RFID application, characterized in that notifying.

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