RFID systems – for RadioFrequency Identification – are able to identify object or person without any contact or direct vision. For this reason, their use grows exponentially in many different fields: nuclear, avionics, railways, medical, warehouse inventories, access control… However they are complex heterogeneous systems, consisting of analog and digital hardware components and software components: the tag, closed on the object to identified, which contains its identifier; the reader which able to read identifiers on tags; and finally the IT infrastructure to manage data. RFID technologies are often used into critical domains or within harsh environments. But as RFID systems are only based on low cost and low-performance equipments, they do not always ensure robust communications. All these points make the on-line testing of RFID systems a very complex task.This thesis focuses on dependability of RFID systems: how to be sure that this system works correctly when we need to use it? Firstly, failures and their causes have been studied using a common method called FMEA – Failure Modes and Effects Analysis – This study allows to identify weakness aspects of RFID systems. After that and thanks to this analysis, a new simulator was designed and implemented. This simulator, called SERFID for Simulation and Evaluation of RFID systems, is able to simulate various RFID systems with many devices (HF or UHF, actually implemented standards: ISO15693 or EPC Class 1 Generation 2), from tag to reader, together with the RF channel between them and the physic aspect which permit to tags and readers to communicate. SERFID also permits to connect an existing or new middleware to simulated reader to evaluate new software approach. To analyze dependability of RFID systems, SERFID allows us to inject fault in tag, channel or readers dynamically, to simulate different failures which can be appear: decrease of quality of communication or tag supply, memory errors in tag, noises… SERFID was in particular use to simulate HF and UHF RFID systems to observe their reaction according noises and disturbances in communication between tag and reader. Finally, a new method to detect faulty or aging tags or readers in traceability application was proposed. This non-intrusive on-line method is based on performance observation of the system during operation: the managing software analyzes results of an identification round. According read error rate per tag of an inventory, and comparing it with previous obtained read error rates per tag, this method is able to determine which group of tags is faulty or not. This method has been analyzed with to method: by experimentations and by simulation using SERFID. This analyze brings out weakness and strength of this method.
