HITOC (Handy tool for identification and tracking on operational canvas)

Abstract

Identification & tracking of objects, goods and people within any open or closed environment is a very important issue which has a number of applications such as access management, tracking of goods & people, toll collection & in disaster management. The same is equally important in the defense sector situations such as secure & rescue operations where identification & tracking of soldiers & equipment is imperative. Radio- frequency identification (RFID) is a technology that uses radio waves to transfer data from an electronic tag/RFID tag attached to an object, through a reader for the purpose of identifying & tracking of the object. Now a days, RFID tags are available that can read from several meters away & beyond the line of sight of the reader. But an RFID tag & reader directly communicate with each other and one tag’s data cannot be relayed by the other tag to the reader. This is a very uncial drawback of RFID technology that makes it infeasible for tracking of individuals in secure & rescue operations or tracking of troop in a combat field. Moreover, RFID tags are generally available in world –readable formats, which pose a risk to both personal location privacy and corporate/military security. Some crypto graphic solutions which attempt to achieve privacy against unauthorized reader are largely in research stage. Another technology that is rapidly attracting both academia & industry for the purpose of identification and tracking is the Zigbee. It is a specification for a suite of high level communication protocols using small, low power, cheap digital radios based on an IEEE 802 standard for personal area networks. Zigbee is a cheap technology intended for applications which require low data rate, long battery life and secure networking.