Un sistema RFID in banda UHF per l'autoprestito in Biblioteca

Department of Physics and CASPUR have been starting, in the past 2 years, a collaborationin order to develop a new RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) system for automaticlibrary loan procedures. These systems (generally known as self-checkequipments) uses radio signals in the UHF frequency range to interact with antennas(passive tags) used to identify books. Users identification is made through special cardswith an embedded tag. The entire loan process is completely managed by users throughprograms which run on a PC (terminal) directly attached to the reader. In our project weused an approach different from current commercial solutions, that works with RFIDreader in the range of HF. We think in fact, that this new “technology” could be verypromising in the future for the enhancements it could bring vs the “old” one (e.g. formassive inventory of library items in a “single shot”, not permitted then using HF RFIDtechnology). In this report we not only demonstrate that UHF RFID readers can be usedinside libraries as effectively as HF RFID readers (despite the latter is a more mature andstable technology), but also illustrate a solution that makes use of UHF RFID componentswhich are relative simple to maintain and to upgrade, open for systems integration,web manageable and with an Ethernet port for direct local network connection. Usersinteractions with library loan system is performed through a simple Web interface on anetwork attached terminal. A software library fully compatible with SIP2, the protocolused by library management systems for automatic loan procedures is also available forInternet community. Currently a prototype of our solution is going to be installed in twolibraries of Università “La Sapienza” of Rome for testing procedures in real environments.