ISO/IEC 24791-5:2012

INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 24791-5
First edition
2012-12-15
Information technology — Radio
frequency identification (RFID) for item
management — Software system
infrastructure
Part 5:
Device interface
Technologies de l'information — Identification de radio fréquence
(RFID) pour la gestion d'élément — Infrastructure de systèmes logiciels
Partie 5: Interface de dispositif

Reference number
©
ISO/IEC 2012
©  ISO/IEC 2012
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ii © ISO/IEC 2012 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword . iv
Introduction . v
1  Scope . 1
2  Conformance . 1
3  Normative references . 1
4  Terms and definitions . 2
5  Abbreviated terms . 3
6  Software System Infrastructure Architecture Overview . 3
7  UML Modeling . 4
8  Device Interface . 4
8.1  General . 4
8.2  Architecture . 4
9  LLRP Extensions Abstract Definitions . 5
9.1  General . 5
9.2  LLRP Data Types . 6
9.3  ISO15962Read Parameter . 6
9.4  ISO15962ReadResult Parameter . 8
10  LLRP Extensions Binary Encoding . 11
10.1  General . 11
10.2  ISO15962Read Parameter . 11
10.3  ISO15962ReadResult Parameter . 12
Annex A (informative) LLRP Open Source Project References . 14
Annex B (informative) UTF-8 and 8859-1 Conversion Algorithms . 15
Bibliography . 19

© ISO/IEC 2012 – All rights reserved iii

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of
ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees established
by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC technical
committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental and non-
governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work. In the field of information technology,
ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee, ISO/IEC JTC 1.
International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.
The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards. Draft International
Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are circulated to national bodies for voting. Publication as
an International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the national bodies casting a vote.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent
rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
ISO/IEC 24791-5 was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology,
Subcommittee SC 31, Automatic identification and data capture techniques.
ISO/IEC 24791 consists of the following parts, under the general title Information technology — Radio
frequency identification (RFID) for item management — Software system infrastructure:
 Part 1: Architecture
 Part 2: Data management
 Part 3: Device management
 Part 5: Device interface
iv © ISO/IEC 2012 – All rights reserved

Introduction
RFID air interface technology is based on non-contact electro-magnetic communication among interrogators
and tags. RFID software systems are composed of RFID interrogators, intermediate software systems, and
applications that provide control and coordination of air interface operation, tag information exchange, and
health and performance management of system components. RFID technology is expected to increase
effectiveness in many aspects of business by further advancing the capabilities of Automatic Identification and
Data Capture (AIDC). To achieve this goal through the successful adoption of RFID technology into real
business environments, RFID devices, software systems, and business applications shall provide secure and
interoperable services, interfaces, and technologies. This is the goal of the standards defined for RFID
Software System Infrastructure (SSI), ISO/IEC 24791. The composition and operations of SSI exist in systems
that implement other RFID standards including the air interfaces described in the ISO/IEC 18000 series and
the data and interface functions defined in ISO/IEC 15962, ISO/IEC 15963, ISO/IEC 24753 and others.
The goal of this part of ISO/IEC 24791 is to define a device interface that provides RFID controlling software
with low-level access to RFID air interface hardware. This low-level access gives programmers a degree of
control over the sequencing of air protocol commands and direct access to air protocol command parameter.
Using this low-level interface, programmers can optimize RFID data access and control operations.
The interface defined by this part of ISO/IEC 24791 supports the following features:
 efficient, binary transfer syntax over TCP/IP
 access to RFID air protocol commands and command parameters
 support for optimized RFID tag access operations whereby multiple operations can be performed on a
tag with minimal tag state changes
 direct read/write access to all data on an RFID tag
 read one or more individual tag data items (encoded as defined by ISO/IEC 15962) as specified by
their OID using URN notation
 [optional] decode data items (encoded as defined by ISO/IEC 15962) into their Unicode
representation (UTF-8 encoded). Encoding data items is not supported
 support for RFID air protocol type defined by Type C of ISO/IEC 18000-6.
The interface defined in this part of ISO/IEC 24791 provides access to RFID air protocol commands and their
respective command parameters. Therefore using this interface, tag memory banks can be locked, tags can
be killed, and raw-binary RFID tag data can be accessed directly on a tag for both reading and writing. In
addition, individual data items (encoded as defined by ISO/IEC 15962) can be read by specifying each data
item’s OID. Optionally, the interrogator can decode data items read into their character string representation. If
the interrogator cannot decode a data item, then it will return the entire encoded package within which the
data item resides. In this case, it is the responsibility of higher-level software to further decode the data item.
The interface does not support RFID tag data encoding. It is the responsibility of higher-level software (i.e.,
software outside the interface defined by this part of ISO/IEC 24791 to perform data encoding (i.e., binary tag
data representation as defined by ISO/IEC 15962) that is stored on RFID tags.
This part of ISO/IEC 24791 is composed of the EPCglobal™ standard, Low Level Reader Protocol [LLRP], in
its entirety with extensions that support reading RFID tag data items that are encoded according to
ISO/IEC 15962. As does the LLRP standard, this part of ISO/IEC 24791 defines both the abstract functional
capabilities of the interrogator interface and the binary transfer syntax between the interrogator and a
controlling system device. The transfer syntax is defined to be communicated over TCP/IP.
© ISO/IEC 2012 – All rights reserved v

INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO/IEC 24791-5:2012(E)

Information technology — Radio frequency identification (RFID)
for item management — Software system infrastructure
Part 5:
Device interface
1 Scope
This part of ISO/IEC 24791 defines an interface within the Software System Infrastructure (SSI) that provides
RFID system control components with low-level access to RFID interrogators for the purpose of optimizing
RFID data access and control operations. This interface is designed to be modular with the ability to support
multiple RFID air protocols. However, in this this part of ISO/IEC 24791, the only RFID air protocol supported
is Type C of ISO/IEC 18000-6.
2 Conformance
Conformance for this part of ISO/IEC 24791 shall satisfy the requirements of the EPCglobal LLRP
specification and the requirements of the LLRP extensions defined in clause 9 of this part of ISO/IEC 24791.
Clause 9 is partitioned into sub-clauses and each sub-clause includes a specific compliance requirement
paragraph. Therefore, conformance to clause 9 of this part of ISO/IEC 24791 is defined by the shall
statements of the compliance requirement paragraphs found within the sub-clauses of clause 9. The
EPCglobal LLRP specification also has specific compliance requirement paragraphs. Therefore, conformance
to the EPCglobal LLRP specification is defined by the shall statements of the compliance requirement
paragraphs found in the LLRP specification.
3 Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document. For dated
references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced
document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO/IEC 8859-1, Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 1: Latin
alphabet No. 1
ISO/IEC 19762-1, Information technology — Automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) techniques —
Harmonized vocabulary — Part 1: General terms relating to AIDC)
ISO/IEC 19762-3, Information technology — Automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) techniques —
Harmonized vocabulary — Part 3: Radio frequency identification (RFID)
ISO/IEC 24791-1, Information technology — Radio frequency identification (RFID) for item management —
Software system infrastructure — Part 1: Architecture
EPCglobal™ LLRP, Low Level Reader Protocol
© ISO/IEC 2012 – All rights reserved 1

4 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO/IEC 19762-1, ISO/IEC 19762-3, and
the following apply.
4.1
device interface
communications interface that provides tag data access and control operations between an RFID Interrogator
and an upstream Client
4.2
endpoint
one of two components that either implements and exposes an interface to other components or uses the
interface of another component
4.3
interrogator endpoint
component that implements and exposes the interrogator interface defined by this part of ISO/IEC 24791 to
other system components
4.4
client endpoint
component that uses the interrogator interface defined by this part of ISO/IEC 24791 to access interrogators
4.5
interface
shared boundary between two functional units, defined by various characteristics pertaining to the functions,
physical or software interconnections, signal exchanges, and other characteristics, as appropriate
4.6
interrogator controller
system component, possibly a distinct physical device, which is capable of exercising the data, control, and
management of interrogators as described in this part of ISO/IEC 24791
4.7
data set
binary representation of a data element’s identifier and its associated data value that is encoded according to
the rules defined by ISO/IEC 15962 standard access method
4.8
data item
pairing of a data element’s identifier and its ass
...