Arjona Aguilera, LauraLandaluce, HugoPerallos Ruiz, AsierOnieva Caracuel, Enrique2026-04-132026-04-132018-07-06Arjona, L., Landaluce, H., Perallos, A., & Onieva, E. (2018). Timing-aware RFID anti-collision protocol to increase the tag identification rate. IEEE Access, 6, 33529-33541. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2018.284922310.1109/ACCESS.2018.2849223https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14454/5613Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is one of the most popular systems to uniquely identify items by attaching a tag to them. The growing number of tagged items that need to be identified in one reader interrogation area leads to high tag collision rates. Therefore, fast anti-collision protocols are required to minimize the total tags identification time. Fast protocols involve a high tag identification rate (TIR), defined as the number of tags identified per time unit. In this paper, a thorough study of TIR is provided, analyzing the main factor which affects it: The frame size update strategy. Applying the conclusion of this analysis, the anti-collision protocol Timing-Aware Frame Slotted Aloha (TAFSA), is presented to increase TIR. TAFSA presents a timing-Aware frame, because its size is set according to the timing parameters of a real RFID system based on the current standard. The performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated and compared with several state of the art Aloha-based anti-collision protocols. Considering a typical RFID scenario, simulation results show that TAFSA, with an average of 56.7 tags identified per second, achieves a 10 % average improvement in TIR in relation to the strategies of the comparison.eng© 2018 IEEEAnticollisionEPC-global standardRadio frequency identification (RFID)Tag estimationTiming-AwareTIRjournal article2026-04-132169-3536