Wednesday, October 29, 2008

UMass Amherst researchers get NSF grant to improve RFID

By Mass High Tech Staff

The University of Massachusetts Amherst reports that three engineers at the Western Mass. school have won a $200,000 grant to improve security and reduce costs on radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology.

The National Science Foundation Cyber Trust grant was awarded to Wayne Burleson, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his colleagues Dennis Goeckel and Robert Jackson. The researchers are looking at using a data encryption method based on ultra-wideband (UWB) radio waves to both improve security and reduce energy use of embedded RFID chips.
The research team is working in collaboration with RSA Security, the Bedford-based security division of EMC Corp. of Hopkinton.

Last month, UMass Amherst shared in a $12 million grant, also from the National Science Foundation, for academic and corporate researchers that was doled out by the primary grant winner BBN Technologies Corp. Along with UMass Amherst, the University of Massachusetts Lowell won funds to work on a network infrastructure project called the Global Environment for Network Innovations.

Under the grants, research teams will build, integrate and begin to operate the first prototypes of the GENI suite of network research infrastructure. The GENI project is sponsored by the NSF to support experimental research in network science and engineering.