Hardware implementation of tag-reader mutual authentication protocol for RFID systems

•Truncated multiplier is used to encode the password of RFID authentication protocol.•Protocol with truncated multipliers provides more security.•Better area and power saving of proposed RFID mutual authentication protocol is demonstrated.•An FPGA Implementation has done for proposed RFID mutual authentication protocol.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is a recent technology that utilizes radio frequencies to track the object by transmitting a signal with a unique serial identity. Generally, the drawbacks of RFID technology are high cost and authentication systems between a reader and a tag become weak. In this paper, we proposed a protocol for RFID tag–reader mutual authentication scheme which is hardware efficient and consumes less dynamic power. Truncated multipliers are implemented in RFID tag–reader mutual authentication protocol system due to reduction in hardware cost and dynamic power. Experimental evaluation reveals that the proposed protocol with truncated multipliers provides more security than the earlier schemes. The proposed protocol is described in VHDL and simulated using Altera Quartus II. The functional block is implemented as hardware using an Altera DE2 Cyclone II (EP2C35F672C6) Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).