International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013
NFC Technology across a Broad Range of
Applications
R.R.V.S.S.ABHISHEK #1, P.RAVI TEJA *2, P.RAM MANINTH #3
Department of ECE, K L University Green Fields, Vaddeswaram, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh 522502
Abstract— In NFC technology one of the fast growing areas is
NFC mobile services. Adoption of NFC in wide range of
applications decides the success of NFC technology .In
development point of view describing the important uses and the
structure of overall NFC is needed. So for growth in business area
we have to recognize and meet the technological requirements.
Cost, complexity and implementation of technology in wide variety
of devices plays a key role to decide the success. In this paper we
will discuss different types of communication modes such as active
and passive, protocols in NFC and also compared various
technologies in security aspects.
COMBINING COMMUNICATION&
IDENTIFICATION
NFC is technology evolved from contactless radio frequency
identification (RFID) and networking technologies that offers
convenient short-range communication between electronic
devices. It allows quick and automatic set-up of virtual
connections for existing cellular, Bluetooth and wireless
802.11 devices. This fast and easy communication between all
types of wireless devices through touch-and-go convenience
makes NFC the perfect solution for controlling data in our
increasingly complex and connected world.
Keywords— NFC, MNO, Handover protocol
WHAT IS NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION (NFC)?
INTRODUCTION
Since the past decades, Contactless Card Technology has been
growing and has been endorsed by different sectors such as
payment, transport and retailing. Simultaneously, mobile
phones with the additional deals of Internet and multimedia
services have successfully entered people’s daily life.
Contactless card technology can now extend its domain of
applicability by adding contactless functionality to the mobile
phone. The Near Field Communication mobile service, which
influences the present contactless infrastructures, has just
started to emerge. In some countries contactless card
technology and mobile phones have already launched and they
succeeded commercially.
Different kinds of “Contactless technology” exist now.
Mobile Network Operators and to third party Service
Providers are willing to introduce Near Field Communication
technology. NFC supports very short distances operations,
typically less than 4 cm and is predicted as a strong enabler to
meet new customer needs and drive value added business
models.
An easy way to comply with the conference paper
formatting requirements is to use this document as a template
and simply type your text into it.
ISSN: 2231-5381
Jointly developed by Philips and Sony, NFC is a short range
wireless technology that allows communications to take place
between devices that either touch or are momentarily held
close together.
This technology operates on an unlicensed radio frequency
band through magnetic field induction. It allows devices that
are connected to transfer data either one side or both. Tags are
present within the system.
NFC is based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
technology, which is compatible with most of the contactless
transportation and ticketing solutions that are commonly used
around the world to enable quick and smooth flow of people
within public transportation systems or ticketed environments.
NFC is an open platform technology and was approved as an
ISO/IEC global standard in December 2003.
WIRELESS SHORT RANGE COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGY
The underling RFID technology is based on wireless peer-topeer communication between two devices defined as either a
‘reader’ or a ‘tag’. RFID can operate in a number of frequency
bands and at a variety of transmit powers, but for NFC a very
low transmit power is used at a frequency of 13.56 M Hz. In
order for communication to take place the two devices must
be in very close proximity, typically within 5 cm.
The tag has no power supply so the reader initiates
communication when the devices are close enough to achieve
inductive coupling. Sufficient current is induced in the tag’s
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antenna to power a small chip so that information can be read
or written to it. Reverse information flow is achieved through
a technique called load modulation. When the devices are
inductively coupled .It is possible for the reader to detect
changes in the load presented by the tag. Thus changing the
load acts as a form of modulation and data rates up to 424
Kbit/s can be achieved between NFC compliant devices.
PROTOCOL
The protocol is based on a wireless interface. We adopt peerto-peer communication protocol as we have two parties in
communication. The protocol initiates wireless network
connections between network appliances and consumer
electronics devices.
The NFC forum defines three communication modes, as
illustrated next:
Peer-to-Peer mode is defined for device to device link-level
communication. Note that this mode is not supported by the
Contactless Communication API.
Read/Write mode allows applications for the transmission of
NFC Forum-defined messages. Note that this mode is not
secure. This mode is supported the Contactless
Communication API. NFC Card Emulation mode allows the
NFC-handset behave as a standard Smartcard. This mode is
secure. This mode is supported by the Contactless
Communication API.
NFC FORUM ISSUES SPECIFICATIONS FOR FOUR
TAG TYPES
TABLE I
Type 1
Standard
Memory
Fig. 2 Passive mode of communication
In often applied case where devices shares a single RF band,
the communication is half-duplex. The devices implement the
“listen before talk” policy in which device must first listen on
the carrier and start transmitting a signal only if no other
device is detected transmitting.
NFC protocol diagnose between the Initiator and the Target of
the communication. Some device might be either an initiator
or a target. Initiator functionality is to initiate and control the
exchange of data. Target function is to answers the request
from the Initiator.NFC protocol also distinguishes between
two modes of operation: Active mode and Passive mode. All
devices support both communication modes. The distinction is
as follows:
Speed
Type 2
Type 3
Type 4
ISO
ISO
(JIS) X ISO14443
14443 A
14443 A
6319-4
A and B
(FeliCa)
96 bytes 48 bytes Memory
Up to 32
and
and
availabilit Kbytes
expandab expandab y
is per
le to 2 le to 2 variable(
service
kbyte
kbyte
Up
to
1MB)
106 kbit/s 106 kbit/s 212 kbit/s Up to 424
or
424 kbit/s.
kbit/s
CODING AND MODULATION
The major difference between active device and passive
device is mode of transmission. In passive devices, the
technique used to encode data is Manchester coding. Whereas
in active devices modified Miller coding with 100%
modulation is adopted if the data rate is 106 kbps, if the data
rate is greater than 106 kbps Manchester coding using a
modulation ratio of 10% is adopted.
COLLISION AVOIDANCE
Fig. 3 Active mode of communication
Subsequently the application and/or the communication
environment may require speed adaptation, which can be
done during communication.
Usually misunderstandings are rare as the devices are placed
in direct proximity. We implement listen before talk principle.
Initiator should not disturb any other NFC communication. So
before establishing a connection it has to make sure that there
is no external RF field. It has to wait until RF field is detected
and then start communication after a specific guard time. In
the case when two or more targets answer at the same time,
then initiator detects it as a collision.
NFC AND OTHER WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) - Volume4Issue4- April 2013
NFC is complementary with existing wireless standards. It can
be used to initiate WLAN, Bluetooth and other wireless
connections without going through configuration menus.
These connections are established simply by holding the two
NFC products close together, or by configuring a device with
contactless smart media.
TABLE III
Adjudicate Handover allows only two devices to negotiate
one or more different carriers for extra data exchange. The
case shown in Figure 5 illustrates how a Handover Requester
uses the embedded NFC Forum Device to exchange
connection handover information with the Handover Selector
to finally select a matching different carrier. In the example,
the application running on the Handover Requester first
announces its different carriers likes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
wireless technology to the Handover Selector, and then
receives a carrier selection such as Bluetooth wireless
technology as the only choice and finally performs
Bluetooth pairing and data exchange STATIC HANDOVER
SET UP OF COMMUNICATION WITH OTHER
PROTOCOL
Imagine that you would like to transfer a massive amount of
information between two computers – a desktop and a laptop.
For suppose you want to transfer a presentation file. Using
NFC may be slow and we decide to use something with more
bandwidth. Let’s say for this example we use Bluetooth. Now,
to set up Bluetooth communication between two computers
we would need to start connection manually with a password
to protect the communication.
HANDOVER PROTOCOL
This protocol defines NDEF messages which enable an
alternative communication carrier. The Handover Requester
negotiates this alternative communication with a Handover
Selector over the NFC link and also enables the possible
alternative communication carrier(s) from an NFC Forum tag
but the drawback is it does not work for the static information
stored on a tag. The Handover Requestor is defined to initiate
the hand over operation and the Handover Selector is defined
to be initially passive and that responds to the requestor, this
does not generate a handover message.
Fig. 6 NFC static Handover
NFC DEVICE
Mobile Information Device Profile together with Contactless
API (JSR 257)is developing NFC-based applications for java
and other handsets for a contactless I/O, and SATSA (JSR
177) for a more secure element capabilities. The elements of a
Java-based handset that supports NFC are on the top of the
illustration that is the Java runtime and APIs for accessing
SIM cards and Contactless communication channels, as well
as the Java MIDlet application. Important point to know is
that the application consists of two parts, the MIDlet and a
Java Card application that may reside on a SIM card or a
smart-card, and perhaps uses memory for the key store. Below
we see the NFC controller, Baseband processor and RF Unit
and there is the antenna. Externally to the handset are readers,
tags and smart-cards with which the handset communicates
with.
NEGOTIATED HANDOVER
CONTACTLESS COMMUNICATION API
Fig. 5 NFC Negotiated Handover
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The Contactless Communication API Java specification, led
by Nokia and defined under the Java Community Process as
JSR-257, defines a set of APIs for proximity, contactlessbased communication. The API consists of five Java
packages. The Contactless Communication API allows you to
Discover and Exchange data with contactless targets such as
NDEF tags, RFID tags, and external smartcards. The API also
provides support for visual tags.
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ADVANTAGES OF NFC
By using NFC-enhanced devices we can exchange and store
messages, pictures, files, etc. Delivering ease of use, instant
natural connectivity, zero configurations and smart key
access, NFC meets all the requirements of today’s consume
necessities and also helpful in creating opportunities for new
mobile services.
APPLICATION FIELDS OF NFC
A. Payment & ticketing
NFC enables users to make fast and secure purchases, go
shopping with electronic money, and also to buy, store and
use electronic tickets, such as concert/event tickets, plane
tickets, travel cards, etc.
B. Electronic keys
For example, these can be car keys, house/office keys, etc.
destruction. Still, the attacker is not able to generate a valid
message.. This attack can be easily realized. One of possible
ways to disturb the signal is the usage of a RFID Jammer.
This attack can be detected but it is impossible to prevent it.
NFC devices are capable of receiving and transmitting data at
the same time
3) Data Modification- Illegal changing of data, which results
in authoritative messages, is much more complicated and
demands a thorough understanding. In order to modify the
transmitted data, an intruder has to concern single bit of the
RF signal. The utlity of this attack is to mean that if at all
there is a change in bit value from 0 to 1 or the other way
around, this clout the concept of amplitude modulation. 5
4) Data Insertion-If there is enough time for attacker to send
an inserted message before the real device starts sending his
answers then collision may occur and data exchange may stop
suddenly. To avoid such attacks the device should try to
answer with no delay. We can also protect attacks by checking
RF field and by using secure channel.
5) Man-in-the-Middle-Attack- we have to check both, the
active and the passive modes to prove that NFC is secure
against Man-in-the-Middle-Attack.
C. Identification
In addition, NFC makes it possible to use mobile phones
instead of identity documents. In Japan, for example, student
IDs can be stored on cell phone, which allows the students to
electronically register for classes, to open locked campus
doors, buy food at the school cafeteria, borrow books, and
even get discounts at local movie theaters, restaurants, and
shops.
D. Receive and share information
The data stored on any tagged object (e.g. a DVD box or a
poster) can be accessed by mobile phones in order to
download movie trailers, street-maps, travel timetables etc.
E. Set-up service
To avoid the complicated configuration process, NFC can be
used for the set-up of other longer-range wireless
technologies, such as Bluetooth or Wireless LAN.
SECURITY ASPECTS
1) Eavesdropping-NFC is vulnerable to eavesdropping. The
transmitted data through RF waves can be intercepted by the
attackers. Eavesdropping is affected by the communication
mode. Depending on the mode, the transferred data is coded
and modulated differently. It is easy to attack the data with
stronger modulation. Attacking a passive device is more
complex than attacking active device because passive doesn’t
generate its own RF field.
2) Data Destruction- An attacker corrupts the communication
such that service is no longer available is called data
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CHALLENGES OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF NFCBASED SERVICES
NFC-based solutions collaborating with existing contactless
and smart card standards have still deficiencies. Many
problems can be derived from technical and technological
barriers:
1) Complex ecosystem (many players), 2) business model
focused on payment mainly, 3) MNOs are not ordering the
handsets and are stuck doing trials after trials.
CONCLUSION
NFC has the potential to be a disruptive technology, changing
the way that lives are lived, transforming everyday tasks,
making things easier, more intuitive and more effective. NFC
wireless communications can be applied in many different
ways, some of which are outlined in this paper. However,
perhaps most exciting of all is the creation of an environment
with all the key components for NFC to become a mass
adoption technology. From here, any number of applications
can be created to sit within the environment.
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