RFID-data compression for supporting aggregate queries

RFID-based systems for object tracking and supply chain management have been emerging since the RFID technology proved effective in monitoring movements of objects. The monitoring activity typically results in huge numbers of readings, thus making the problem of efficiently retrieving aggregate information from the collected data a challenging issue. In fact, tackling this problem is of crucial importance, as fast answers to aggregate queries are often mandatory to support the decision making process. In this regard, a compression technique for RFID data is proposed, and used as the core of a system supporting the efficient estimation of aggregate queries. Specifically, this technique aims at constructing a lossy synopsis of the data over which aggregate queries can be estimated, without accessing the original data. Owing to the lossy nature of the compression, query estimates are approximate, and are returned along with intervals that are guaranteed to contain the exact query answers. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been experimentally validated, showing a remarkable trade-off between the efficiency and the accuracy of the query estimation.