Reva Systems is a leader in developing standards that enable RFID adoption and proliferation. Reva invests significant time and resources to further the progress of key RFID and networking standards efforts.

EPCglobal is a not-for-profit industry consortium working on standards for the development, implementation and adoption of Electronic Product Code (EPC) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. Reva is a member and leading contributor to EPCglobal and participates on hardware (HAG), software (SAG) and business action group (BAG) work teams.

Gen2
Reva's Chief RF Architect, Jeffrey Fischer, was co-chair of the Gen2 Air Protocol Chicago Review Committee. This HAG working group merged multiple proposals for standard communications between tags and readers to create the consensus Gen2 specification. The effort enabled the ratification of EPCglobal's first critical standard - the Gen2 Air Protocol. Gen2 is widely acknowledged as an essential first step in the evolution and widespread adoption of passive RFID as it provides a level of interoperability that has not existed previously at the tag-reader level.

UHF Air Interface Work Group (UHF AI)
Reva's Chief RF Architect, Jeffrey Fischer, co-chairs the UHF AI workgroup with a colleague from Wal*Mart. The UHF AI workgroup is focused on the use of UHF RFID tags for item level tagging applications. The expanding interest in item level tagging and the advances in near field UHF implementations are driving advances in this area.

Reader Operations - Low Level Reader Protocol (LLRP)
Reva's Chief Technology Officer, David Husak, co-chairs the Reader Operations workgroup. This team is focused on developing a standard called the Low Level Reader Protocol (LLRP) for reader-to-network communications, control and management. Additionally, Reva's Chief System Architect, P. Krishna, is the primary content coordinator and editor for the protocol as it moves through the standards development process. Today many RFID readers are IP connected devices running full TPC/IP stacks; however, network-side interfaces are vendor proprietary. Reva Systems recognizes the need for a standard network-side protocol for RFID readers that will drive market evolution, create a competitive environment and ultimately provide adopters with interoperable choices.

Application Level Events (ALE)
Reva has contributed to the Application Level Events (ALE) standard which is intended to provide enterprise applications with filtered RFID event data. Furthermore, Reva's Tag Acquisition Processor (TAP) product has received EPCglobal's certification of conformance to this standard.

Business Action Group Involvement
Reva's Chairman, Ashley Stephenson, is a recognized contributor within the Business Action Group. His efforts in the Data Exchange work group have focused on the process for standardized data sharing for both inter and intra-enterprise collaboration involving EPC data.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) plays a major role in the global standardization of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), including telecommunications and broadcasting. ETSI unites all the key players in the ICT arena, with almost 700 member companies from 56 countries, comprising of manufacturers, network operators, administrations, service providers, research bodies, users and more.

Reva has demonstrated system level reader synchronization for the members of ETSI's Task Group 34 (TG#34) to assist the team as it addresses concerns over the "Listen Before Talk" (LBT) requirements which face European adopters of RFID technology.

TG#34 represents the interests of the RFID industry within ETSI for all RFID products and devices. It is tasked to Develop deliverables as instructed by ETSI Technical Committee ERM for future RFID technologies and products not covered by current generic standards. TG#34 liaises with other groups in ETSI to ensure co-existence of RFID devices with other product groups.

In ETSI, the Radio Competence Centre (RCC) is responsible for the secretariat support of TG#34, see http://portal.etsi.org/radio/ for details of how the RCC works.

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world's largest developer of standards. ISO standards contribute to making the development, manufacturing and supply of products and services more efficient, safer and cleaner. They make trade between countries easier and fairer. They provide governments with a technical base for health, safety and environmental legislation. They aid in transferring technology to developing countries. ISO standards also serve to safeguard consumers, and users in general, of products and services - as well as to make their lives simpler.

ISO publishes several standards pertaining to RFID. Of significant note for UHF passive tag applications are ISO 18000-6A and ISO 18000-6B. ISO is currently considering adopting the EPCglobal Gen2 Air Protocol under its own authority as ISO 18000-6C. There were initially some stumbling blocks concerning number space allocation in the EPCglobal specification that ISO supporters found objectionable. This threatened to block ISO’s adoption of the standard which would have been a major set back for the market and RFID technology acceptance. Reva played a key role in a small group of concerned companies that proposed a compromise solution that ultimately paved the way for ISO to go forward with the ratification process to accept the EPCglobal created standard as an ISO standard.

Reva is a voting member of the US Technical Advisory Group to ISO in the Automated Data Collection (RFID) area.

The Low Power Radio Association (LPRA) is a European organization involved in promoting standards and advancing technology. LPRA is actively working with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to harmonize the operation of RFID devices with non-RFID devices for improved spectrum utilization and operational performance. Reva is a member of the LPRA contributing to these efforts.

Web Services WANSIG - MIT autoID Lab

The Web-Services Wide Area Network Special Interest Group (WANSIG) at MIT’s auto-ID Lab is a collaborative initiative joining academia and industry in the pursuit of investigating the application of web-services standards and approaches to managing and using large volumes of RFID data. Reva is a charter member of this group and works closely with other industry end users and solution providers in this endeavor.