ART

Authentication for long-range RFID Technology

The project was supported by the Austrian programme FIT-IT Embedded Systems. SNAP was executed in a cooperative manner by three partners (IAIK, FH JOANNEUM, NXP Semiconductors Austria and Siemens). The start of the project was in 2003 and it was successfully completed in 2005. ART was directed towards research on using so-called RFID tags (short for "radio frequency identification tags") in applications, where long-range communication as well as enhanced security are a necessity.

RFID tags communicate over a wireless radio frequency link with the partner device, "the reader." These tags pull their energy for operation from the electromagnetic field produced by the reader. Up to now, tags have not been equipped with strong cryptography due to limits of cost and technology. In ART we plan to push these limits by investigating innovative implementation techniques where processing power matches the available energy. Pushing these limits is far from trivial and challenging at the moment. From a conceptual point of view, with the inclusion of cryptographic algorithms, we intend to pull RFID tag technology out of simple state machines into programmable controller-type systems.

In ART, we propose to investigate the design and use of such tags when including strong symmetric cryptographic algorithms. The use of such tags with this computational power promises to improve existing applications where security is of concern. But, even more important, items equipped with such RFID tags are also able to authenticate themselves. With this feature, we see new innovative applications for tags, where authentication is necessary. In addition, the project ART concentrates on long-range communication. Advances in this respect are needed in order to fully exploit the potential of wireless communication. When thinking in longer terms - beyond the timeframe of this project - we believe that tags will emerge into some kind of, or feature of ambient intelligence, where technology will be invisible and embedded in our surroundings.