An FPGA-Based RFID Baseband Processor Using a RISC-V Platform

Abstract

Modern applications involving communication systems require the fulfillment of several requirements regarding energy consumption, physical area, operational frequency, cost of production and others. Among the technologies used for communication, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a significant and recurring approach to perform identification and control in industrial and commercial applications. The processor architecture chosen to compose such systems must be capable of handling with the real-time computing effort needed to perform the tasks of digital signal processing required to execute RFID applications. This work proposes a combined platform composed by a processor based on the RISC-V Open Instruction Set Architecture and dedicated hardware to perform the tasks of baseband signal processing required for RFID transmission. The RTL system specification was described in VHDL and SystemVerilog languages and prototyped in a Cyclone III FPGA device.