This document specifies the air interface for radio frequency identification (RFID) devices operating in the 860 MHz to 930 MHz Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band used in item management applications. This document is intended to allow for compatibility and to encourage inter-operability of products for the growing RFID market in the international marketplace.

This document defines the forward and return link parameters for technical attributes including, but not limited to, operating frequency, operating channel accuracy, occupied channel bandwidth, maximum effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP), spurious emissions, modulation, duty cycle, data coding, bit rate, bit rate accuracy, bit transmission order, and, where appropriate, operating channels, frequency hop rate, hop sequence, spreading sequence and chip rate. It further defines the communications protocol used in the air interface.

This document specifies the physical and logical requirements for a passive-backscatter, Interrogator-Talks-First (ITF) or tag-only-talks-after-listening (TOTAL) RFID system.

This document, together with ISO/IEC 18000-61, ISO/IEC 18000-62, ISO/IEC 18000-63 and ISO/IEC 18000-64 specifies the following for the 860 MHz to 930 MHz range:

—    physical interactions (the signalling layer of the communication link) between interrogators and tags;

—    interrogator and tag operating procedures and commands;

—    the collision-arbitration scheme used to identify a specific tag in a multiple-tag environment.