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RFID LLRP 1.0 Protocol Conformance Tester Product Specification
RFID LLRP 1.0 Conformance Tester is a part of the RFID PacketTester family. It helps the LLRP software vendors to test their reader implementation (Implementation Under Test - IUT) for EPCglobal Standard compliance. The certification lab will test only those mandatory functionalities, which are stipulated by the LLRP 1.0 Conformance Test Plan for the EPCglobal certification.
Additionally the LLRP Tester can be used for QA and Regression testing, not only to confirm the EPCglobal certification of IUT but also to perform according to the requirements of the vendors.
The test cases have been developed following the EPCglobal's LLRP Conformance Requirement Document guidelines. The tester contains all the tests required for passing the certification tests. Along with the conformance tests there are proprietary tests (Additional, Miscellaneous, Optional and Negative) supplied by Polaris Networks.
The vendor has the capability of creating customized tests (in addition to the existing tests) to meet their requirements. This will allow them to test the product and the capability limits more extensively. When a problem report comes from the field, the test engineers can quickly create a special test to reproduce the problem. When the problem gets fixed, it can be verified easily by executing that test. |
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Tester Structure
One of the key emphasis of Packet Tester is Test Automation.This is done by grouping diversified tests and running them completely in unattended mode. This reduces the engineering time to complete the QA cycle.
Another supporting utility is the RFID Miniscope Decoder. The packet tester can be configured to forward the received/transmitted packets to the Miniscope Decoder, Miniscope will show both the received and transmitted packets with protocol specific decodes.
LLRP tester has four elements:
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RFID LLRP PacketBuilder
The RFID LLRP PacketBuilder is a standalone offline software entity and is RFID protocol aware. It creates the LLRP packets based on the user inputs. The PacketBuilder executes from a menu driven window interface to create binary LLRP packets according to the requirement of the user. It does not require any configuration and maintenance of the state variable. |
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For creating a new binary packet, the user may create a template of the packet and fill the relevant fields of the binary packet. The PacketBuilder displays the packet to increase the readability in the tree structure. Once the packet has been validated for that packet type, it is saved in a file with a packet id.
The PacketBuilder has the advantage of cloning built packets and modifying the built packets. It also saves some frequently used parameters (group of fields) as templates for a speedy re-usability. The PacketBuilder builds the packet one at a time and saves them in a packet library. |
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RFID LLRP TestBuilder
The TestBuilder builds individual test cases to test a specific functionality using the packets from the packet library. Apart from send/receive feature, there are other user-friendly features in the TestBuilder like timers and pop-up messages.
The received packet is verified. The comparator works differently for different message formats. The binary packet comparison logic is intelligent to verify the ordering of the parameters/fields in the received packet and their multiple occurrences.
Note: The TestBuilder is not a RFID protocol aware. These test scripts are saved in a file to be used by TestEngine at run time. The tests are classified as follows: |
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- Mandatory Tests: An IUT must pass Mandatory tests to get the EPCglobal certification.
- Additional Tests: The Additional test category covers those requirements that can be mapped to a certain section / line of the specification.
- Optional Tests: The Optional Tests are not required by an IUT to support, but if implemented, the IUT should pass these tests.
- Miscellaneous Tests: The Miscellaneous category intends to test the behavior of the software implementation against the unexpected events.
- Negative Tests: The Negative Tests will test the robustness of an IUT implementation.
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RFID LLRP TestEngine
RFID TestEngine (TE) is the core of the LLRP Tester. When the TE is started, the test environment (IP addresses, port numbers, URL, transport binding, message formats) and the actual tag ids, passwords and other LLRP protocol specific parameters for Tester's use can be configured This information will be saved in a file known as vendor.properties file. While functioning as a LLRP reader tester, the TE is capable of running as a TCP client as well as TCP server to meet the requirements of LLRP Conformance Test Plan.
The TE reads the tests and executes the test step sequences based on the associated pass/fail conditions. It will send a predefined test step packet and wait for the conditions to be satisfied. This is a passive tool that does not generate any traffic by itself. It generates traffic only when the user initiates a test and subsequently depending on the response it receives from IUT.
As the TE is running, a message test sequence diagram is created and displayed in real time. This diagram is helpful to understand visually the type of packets transmitted and received from the LLRP interface. TE screen is divided into three panes: test listing display, runtime activities and sequence diagram. This whole content can be saved to a file for later viewing and analysis. If a packet is selected from the middle pane, the corresponding sequence diagram is automatically highlighted.
Test can be run either one at a time in manual mode or in a group (created by choosing the tests and giving a group name) to automate the running in unattended mode. Generally there are two categories of tests: those that can be executed in an unattended mode and those that need an operator intervention. In case of operator intervention, the TE will display a message asking the operator to perform certain activities (e.g.: removing a tag from the field of view of the reader), and then wait for the operator to complete the action and then continue.
The transmitted and received packets can be forwarded to the RFID Miniscope decoder for real time protocol specific decode of the packets either on a field by field basis or on a bit by bit basis, when appropriate. While the packets are being forwarded to the Miniscope, it is saved in a file, which can be run later offline with the Miniscope.
All the message exchanges between the Tester and the LLRP server are saved in a log file. This will help the developers debug any problem by recreating the same external condition. |
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RFID Miniscope Protocol Decoder
The Miniscope is a general purpose protocol decoder developed by Polaris Networks based on ethereal platform. This platform has been used for other wireless protocols such as WiFi (802.11), WiMax (802.16) and ZigBee(802.15.4).
In RFID version of Miniscope, all the standard Miniscope features are available and the additional RFID and EPCglobal specific enhancements have been made.
RFID Miniscope Decoder/Analyzer is a separate run time executable which can be run in conjunction with the TestEngine to monitor, decode and analyze the RFID protocol and payload packets exchanged between the Tester (TestEngine) and the IUT.
Miniscope breaks down each packet on a bit/byte level and field level and displays the content in a more understandable format using the EPCglobal specification formats. The Miniscope may run remotely or may run locally in the same machine where TestEngine is running. The remote running capability allows someone to monitor the testing progress from a remote site.
The user can optionally turn On/Off the Miniscope during the runtime. The exchanged packets are always saved in a file in a Miniscope file format. Miniscope has an option to run the decoder off line using the saved file. |
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Technical Specifications
1. Operating System: - Windows 2000 Professional with Service Pack 3, Windows XP Professional Service Pack2
2. Applicable Standards: - o [LLRP-Spec] EPCglobal, The Low Level Reader Protocol (LLRP) Specification, Version 1.0, Ratified Standard, April 12, 2007 http://www.epcglobalinc.org/standards
o [LLRP-Spec] EPCglobal, The Low Level Reader Protocol (LLRP) Specification, Version 1.0, Ratified Standard, April 12, 2007, http://www.epcglobalinc.org/standards |
Ordering Information
To learn how LLRP Conformance Tester can help you in the development and testing toils, contact Polaris Network at sales@polarisnetworks.net
Polaris Networks
75 Robbins Road,
Lexington, MA 02421
United States
Phone: +1-781-862-4900
Alternate Phone: +1-781-698-9049 |
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