Hardware Implementation of RFID Mutual Authentication Protocol

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is a wireless technology that utilizes radio communication to identify objects with a unique electrical identity. The widespread deployment of RFID technologies may generate new threats to security and user privacy. One of the main drawbacks of RFID technology is the weak authentication systems between a reader and a tag. In general, "weak" authentication systems that either leak the password directly over the network or leak sufficient information while performing authentication allow intruders to deduce or guess the password. In this paper, we study the RFID tag-reader mutual authentication scheme. A hardware implementation of the mutual authentication protocol for the RFID system is proposed. The proposed system was simulated using Modelsim XE II and synthesized using Xilinx synthesis technology. The system has been successfully implemented in hardware using an Altera DE2 board that included an Altera Cyclone II field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Finally, the output waveforms from the FPGA were displayed on the 16702A logic analysis system for real-time verification.