Introduction

As applications of RFID tags and systems expand, there is an increasing need to integrate sensors into RFID tags. The RFID tags being used at present in the supply chain indicate what a product is, but do not reveal any information about conditions that the product has encountered throughout its passage along the supply chain. Only a few RFID tags with sensors are commercially available and they are custom-designed tag–sensor combinations. Adding sensors that can measure environmental conditions such as temperature, vibration, chemicals, gases, and health, and the capability to interrogate the sensor outputs, can provide much needed information about the current and historical conditions of the product. The ability to incorporate sensors and possibly actuators into RFID tags would also open a whole new world of imaginable applications in homeland defense, military operations, manufacturing, animal health, medical operations, and other applications. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 1451 suite of standards [1–9] was developed to provide for “smart” transducers (sensors and actuators) and flexible network interfaces that facilitate “plug-and-play” capabilities for the transducers. The objective of this chapter is to present the current situation in RFID systems and networked transducers and to describe the strategy that is being adopted and research that will be necessary in order to incorporate “smart” sensors and actuators into existing RFID tags and systems using the IEEE 1451 suite of standards approach.