Device and method for checking the integrity of physical objects

• US 9,324,219 B2
• Filed: 05/20/2009
• Issued: 04/26/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/22/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Inria Institut National de Recherche EN Informatique et EN Automatique
• Original Assignee: Inria Institut National de Recherche EN Informatique et EN Automatique
• Inventors: Banatre, Michel, Couderc, Paul, Becus, Mathieu, Allard, Fabien
• Primary Examiner(s): KUDDUS, DANIEL A
• Application Number:
  US12/994,015
• Publication Number:
  US 20110178999A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,533 Days
• Field of Search: 707/701, 707/704
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10366 the interrogation device being adapted for miscellaneous applications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/14 by lifting or attempted removal of hand-portable articles
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/1427 with transmitter-receiver for distance detection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/04 Key management, e.g. using generic bootstrapping architecture [GBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/10 Integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/76 Group identity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication

Abstract

The invention relates to a device for monitoring physical objects that comprises one or more short-range remote readers (13), memory elements (5) to be attached to physical objects, and a controller (15) adapted for executing a reading function capable of interaction with the one or more remote readers in order to acquire data contained in adjacent memory elements, and for executing an integrity validation function capable of distinguishing, from the acquired data, individual identifiers particular to each of the memory elements as well as group description data stored in at least some of said memory elements, and of checking the sufficiency of group description data while checking the compliance of individual identifiers with corresponding group description data.

Claims

1. A system for autonomously monitoring physical objects comprising:

(a) a set of passive radiofrequency tags, each being attached to a respective member of a group of physical objects to monitor, each passive radiofrequency tag comprising a respective memory that stores a specific individual identifier, the respective memory of at least one of the set of passive radiofrequency tags further storing group description data, wherein the group description data comprise a first value that results from a first hash function called with the specific individual identifiers of the set of passive radiofrequency tags,

(b) at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader cooperating with the passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to said at least one short range radiofrequency tag reader, and

(c) a controller configured to;

execute a reading function by said at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader to acquire the specific individual identifiers and the group description data from the memories of the passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to said at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader,

execute an integrity validation function comprising utilizing a second hash function on the specific individual identifiers obtained by the reading function to generate a second value of the group description data, wherein the second hash function is compatible with the first hash function, wherein the integrity validation function further compares said second value of the group description data to said first value of the group description data to determine whether the second value of the group description data complies with the first value of the group description data, and

determine when the group description data from the reading function match the group description data stored in the at least one of the set of passive radiofrequency tags, and when the individual identifiers from the reading function match with the corresponding group description data from the reading function.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the integrity validation function is configured to transmit a first alarm when the second value of the group description data is not consistent with the first value of the group description data.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein the integrity validation function is configured to transmit a second alarm when the individual identifiers from the reading function do not comply with the group description data from the reading function.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the group description data comprise group identifier data and group cardinal data in the group description data, and the integrity validation function associates each group identifier data from the reading function with at least one specific individual identifier from the reading function, wherein the integrity validation function counts the specific individual identifiers relating to at least one of the group identifier data to obtain an identifier number and then compares a said identifier number to the group cardinal data from the reading function to check whether the specific individual identifiers from the reading function comply with the group description data.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader is positioned to read any of the set of passive radiofrequency tags that is located in a given physical space.

6. The system according to claim 5, wherein said given physical space appears as an enclosure, and an opening or a closing of said enclosure is electronically controlled, wherein the opening or the closing of said enclosure is authorized depending on whether the individual identifiers from the reading function comply with the group description data from the reading function.

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader is positioned at an entrance and an exit of a given physical space, and the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader reads any of the set of passive radiofrequency tags entering the given physical space and any of the set of passive radiofrequency tags exiting the given physical space, wherein the controller further controls the entrance and the exit of the given physical space based on said second value.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the controller further assigns a reading date to the specific individual identifiers from the reading function, and wherein the controller executes the integrity validation function only on the specific individual identifiers whose date is comprised within a determined time interval.

9. The system according to claim 1, wherein the controller further classifies the specific individual identifiers from the reading function into at least two complementary data sets, and wherein the integrity validation function is executed distinctly on the at least two complementary data sets.

10. The system according to claim 9, wherein the controller is configured to determine a direction of displacement of the set of passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to the said at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader, said direction of displacement being determined among a plurality of directions of displacement, and wherein the controller classifies the specific individual identifiers from the reading function into the at least two complementary data sets according to the direction of displacement of the set of passive radiofrequency tags from which specific individual identifier is acquired.

11. The system according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to execute the integrity validation function each time after the controller executes the reading function.

12. The system according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to execute a function for recovering additional data, wherein the integrity validation function is further configured to distinguish one or more additional individual identifiers in the additional data, and wherein the controller checks whether the specific individual identifiers from the reading function and the additional individual identifiers comply with the group description data.

13. The system according to claim 1, wherein the integrity validation function is configured to distinguish first group description data and second group description data in the group description data, and the integrity validation function checks whether at least some of the first group description data and the second group description data are consistent, while checking whether the individual identifiers from the reading function comply with the first group description data and with the second group description data.

14. A system for autonomously monitoring physical objects comprising:

a set of passive radiofrequency tags, each comprising a respective memory, wherein each set of passive radiofrequency tags are attached to one of a respective group of physical objects to monitor, and

at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader cooperating with the set of passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to the said at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader, and

a controller configured to execute a writing function cooperating with the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader to write specific individual identifiers into the respective memory of the set of passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to the said at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader and group description data into the respective memory of at least some of the set of passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to the said at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader, wherein the group description data comprise a value resulting from a hash function called with the specific individual identifiers of the set of passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to the said at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader, wherein the group description data are established based on both the specific individual identifiers and additional individual identifier data, wherein the additional individual identifier data comprise a public key and the specific individual identifier data comprise a private key and wherein the public key and the private key correspond to each other.

15. The system according to claim 14, wherein the specific individual identifiers comprise group description data.

16. The system according to claim 14, wherein the writing function is configured to cooperate with the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader to write private keys as specific individual identifiers into the memory of the set of passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader.

17. The system according to claim 14, wherein the controller is configured to:

execute a reading function configured to cooperate with the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader to acquire data contained in the memory of the set of passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader, and to distinguish specific individual identifiers for each passive radiofrequency tag in said data, and

execute a writing function configured to cooperate with the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader to write group description data into the memory of at least some of the set of passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader.

18. The system according to claim 17, wherein the controller is configured to:

execute a reading function configured to cooperate with the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader to acquire data contained the memories of the set of passive radiofrequency tags, and to distinguish specific individual identifiers for each of the set of radiofrequency tags in said data, and

execute a writing function that cooperates with the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader to write group description data into at least some of the passive radiofrequency tags whose physical object is presented to the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader, wherein the group description data are established based on specific individual identifiers of the passive radiofrequency tags.

19. The system according to claim 18, wherein the specific individual identifier comprises a private key, and the group description data are established to be checked in terms of compliance with a public key as an individual identifier as a replacement of the private key of the specific individual identifier.

20. A method for autonomously monitoring physical objects comprising:

A. a preliminary writing stage comprising the steps of;

A1. providing a set of passive radiofrequency tags, each to be attached to one respective of a group of physical objects to be monitored, each passive radiofrequency tag comprising a respective memory storing a specific individual identifier,

A2. calling a first hash function with the specific individual identifiers stored in the respective memories of the set of passive radiofrequency tags to generate group description data comprising a first value,

A3. storing the group description data comprising the first value into the respective memory of at least one of the set of passive radiofrequency tags;

B. a later verification stage comprising the steps of;

B1. acquiring specific individual identifiers and group description data from the memories of the passive radiofrequency tags whose physical objects are physically presented to at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader, wherein the at least one short-range radiofrequency tag reader is positioned to read any of the set of passive radiofrequency tags that is located in a given physical space,

B2. calling a second hash function with the individual identifiers of step B1 to generate a result second value, the second hash function being analogous or compliant with the first hash function,

B3. comparing the result second value of step B2 to the first value of step A2, and

B4. checking whether the group description data of step B1 comply with the group description data of step A2 and whether the individual identifiers of step B1 comply with the group description data of step B1.