Oct.
22, 2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID News Roundup
The following are news announcements made during the past week.
Alien announces EPC Gen 2 reader for EMEA market; ClearCount Medical
Solutions closes Series B financing round; ASK unveils new contactless
USB reader; Arcontia launches new smart card reader for e-ticketing,
e-payment; MTI Wireless Edge introduces UHF forklift antennas; William
Frick redesigns its Web site.
Alien Announces EPC Gen 2 Reader for EMEA Market
Morgan Hill, Calif., RFID hardware manufacturer Alien
Technology is now offering a new UHF EPC Gen 2 RFID interrogator
- the ALR-9900-EMA reader - that meets European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) regulations and is
available for markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
Specifically, the device is designed to comply with ETSI's EN 302-208-2
regulations, more commonly known as "the four-channel-plan."
The ALR-9900 measures 18 by 20 centimeters (7 by 8 inches) and supports
four independent read zones, with a monostatic design (a single antenna
per zone) and dense-reader mode technology. It also features what Alien
calls a "Sniff-'n-Read" feature, to activate the interrogator
only when tags are detected within the RF field, which the company says
is designed to help reduce ambient noise and reader power. The reader
has a general-purpose input and output interface, masking and notification
filtering to streamline network traffic, and data-streaming options,
and also supports received signal strength indication (RSSI), a technology
that measures the strength of a signal.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/5318
Oct.
22, 2009 - RFID
Journal - DOD Tests, Buys New ISO 18000-7 Tags From Four
Companies
The U.S. Department of
Defense (DOD) has placed its first order for RFID technology compliant
with the ISO 18000-7 standard for a November 2009 delivery, to be provided
by Unisys, Savi,
Systems and Processes
Engineering Corp. (SPEC) and Northrop
Grumman. Previously, all four companies had been chosen by the DOD
to compete for orders under its RFID-III contract, which calls for active
433.92 MHz RFID tags and readers compliant with the ISO 18000-7 standard.
The newly ordered battery-powered 433 MHz tags were tested and approved
this summer by the DOD's Product
Manager Joint-Automatic Identification Technology (PM J-AIT) office,
after passing electromagnetic interference (EMI) testing in August at
Wright Patterson
Air Force Base. The previous RFID-II contract for 433 MHz was based
on Savi's proprietary 433 MHz RFID technology, while the new RFID-III
contract requires 433 MHz products compliant with the ISO 18000-7 standard
and supplied by multiple vendors. By using ISO 18000-7-compliant RFID
hardware, the DOD and other U.S. and allied agencies will have a broadened
interoperability of their technology.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5317/1/1/
Oct.
14, 2009 - RFID
Journal - GS1 Releases Guidelines for RFID-based Electronic
Article Surveillance
EPCglobal,
a subsidiary of global nonprofit standards organization GS1,
has released its Strategic Overview Guide and Technical
Implementation Guide for GS1 EPCglobal RFID-based Electronic Article
Surveillance (EAS). The two documents provide the first guidance
specifically for the production of RFID solutions that include EAS functionality
based on EPCglobal's standards. The combined use of Electronic Product
Code (EPC) numbers with UHF EPC Gen 2 RFID tags and readers will enable
manufacturers and retailers to track inventory, as well as gain key
security data as items pass through the door of a retailer's store.
German retail company Metro
Group is among several retailers that have begun piloting this RFID
EAS system—provided by Checkpoint
Systems, which worked closely with GS1 EPCglobal to develop the
new guide—at Metro's Innovation
Center that uses an RFID tag for both inventory visibility and EAS.
. . . The guides are available at no cost at EPCglobal's
Web site.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/5303
Oct.
14, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Lisbon Airport Ups Throughput With RFID Baggage
System
Portugal's Lisbon Airport
reports that its new RFID-based baggage-handling system (BHS) reduces
the average time to process a transfer bag by at least 66 percent. The
system is not backed up by bar-coding technology, making the airport
among the world's first to rely entirely on radio frequency identification
for tracking transfer bags, according to Sérgio Miranda, the
airport's operational manager of baggage terminals.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5302/1/1/
Oct. 8,
2009 - Supply
Chain Digest - RFID - Six Years Later
About six years ago this week, the EPPglobal organization was launched.
So, we’re going take that anniversary as a catalyst to look at
both the history and the future of RFID.
. . . So, here we are six years later. While I actually am quite bullish
on the future of RFID, I think it would be hard not to say that, to
date, EPC has been a disappointment in most respects. Certainly so in
comparison with the expectations I think most had in those heady days
of 2003.
. . . EPC activity in the consumer packaged goods arena, where it all
started, is at a virtual standstill. The Walmart program is stalled,
and its future uncertain. Among other retailers that were prominent
early on, the RFID program at UK’s Tesco, which seemed so promising
early on, also appears to be treading water. Only Germany’s Metro
Stores group continues marching on, though in fits and starts.
Here’s what the RFID program manager at one of the largest consumer
packaged goods companies – one very committed to RFID –
told me earlier this year: “I would say we are almost numb to
the point of cynicism now.” Consumer packaged goods companies
have rapidly downsized their efforts and staffs in this area. RFID,
not long ago looked like a great career move – now, most that
went that way have, or are looking, to get back into mainstream supply
chain or logistics roles.
(more....)
http://www.scdigest.com/assets/FirstThoughts/09-10-08.php?cid=2826&ctype=content
Oct. 1,
2009 - RFID
Journal - Chennai Container Yard Finds RFID Sharply Boosts Productivity
A.S. Shipping Agencies, a container freight station operator based in
Chennai, India, is combining radio frequency identification with GPS
and GPRS technologies to track containers throughout its storage yard,
located 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the Port of Chennai. The company,
which is part of the Greenways
Group, claims it is the first in India to deploy a real-time container
tracking and monitoring system, and indicates it has reduced the time
spent searching for containers from as much as 24 hours to just a few
minutes.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/5266
Sept.
30, 2009 - RFID
Journal - DHL Says Its SmartTrucks Save Money, Time and
CO2
DHL, the
global package delivery service division of logistics giant Deutsche
Post DHL, reports that its SmartTruck
initiative, which integrates RFID into its delivery trucks to enable
faster package handling, has accomplished many of its goals. Nonetheless,
the company indicates, the project is not ready to proceed to the deployment
phase, because the technology has not yet achieved a 100 percent read
rate of tags by the truck-mounted RFID interrogators.
. . . Since Apr. 1 of this year, two specially modified delivery vans
belonging to the DHL fleet have been piloting the technologies in Berlin.
Each vehicle has been outfitted with a Symbol (Motorola) XR 480 RFID
interrogator connected to an onboard computer. When asked, neither Motorola
nor DHL would reveal the cost of the equipment or the RFID portion of
the trial.
. . . To ensure maximum communication between the tags and readers,
the Sprinter vans' cargo bays are wired with six Motorola RFID interrogator
antennas, and the steel shelving used to hold packages has been replaced
with carbon-fiber shelves, in order to reduce interference caused by
metal. To lessen the impact of road vibration, the antennas are mounted
on a special plate to the wall of the van.
The RFID labels, which operate at 865-868 MHz and comply with the EPC
Gen 2 standard, are supplied by GM
Consult IT and are made with UPM
Raflatac inlays containing chips from NXP
Semiconductors. Currently, the labels are applied to the packages
by hand. Were the system to be more widely deployed, said project leader
Boris Paul, packages would be automatically tagged once DHL receives
them.
According to Paul, the interrogators accurately track packages when
"a few" are being removed from the vehicle at a time. The
less-than-100-percent read rate issue stems from the types of conditions
that delivery drivers often face in the field. When drivers hastily
pull out a stack of variously sized envelopes, Paul said, the devices
often have difficulty scanning items in the middle of the stack.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/5261/1/0/
Sept.
30, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Mississippi County Tracks Waste Pickup
Monroe County,
Miss., is employing an RFID-based system to track its garbage trucks,
document the waste carts containing refuse that have been picked up
and ensure the county bills residents appropriately for the service
being provided.
The system enables the county to track 8,600 waste carts and five trucks
as they pick up residential waste and bill residents for the pickups.
Since fully deploying the system in August 2009, the county has identified
600 locations in which residents were receiving pickup service without
being billed, according to Martin Demers, CEO of FleetMind
Solutions, which provided the system's hardware, software and integration.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5263/1/1/
Sept. 22,
2009 - RFID
Journal - Penske Logistics to Use RFID to Manage Yard Workflow
Penske Logistics,
a division of transportation and distribution services provider Penske,
is installing a passive RFID and GPS system to track the locations and
movements of trailers in the yard of a customer's manufacturing facility
in Texas.
The manufacturer employs Penske Logistics' services to manage freight
movement around the facility yard, thus ensuring that the average 100
trailers arriving daily, filled with materials for the products the
firm makes, can be located and unloaded at the appropriate time. The
wireless tracking system, provided by Fluensee,
is slated to go live in November 2009, according to Chuck Papa, Penske
Logistics' VP of strategic value. If it is found to be successful after
several months, he says, the company may offer the service at some of
its other customer locations throughout the country.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5238/1/1/
Sept.
22, 2009 - RFID
Journal - ClimateMinder Monitors Conditions at Farms, Greenhouses,
Warehouses
Norcal Harvesting,
a strawberry grower in Oxnard, Calif., is installing a wireless sensor
system that will enable it to track the conditions of its plants in
real time. The company will be able to see the data on a Web portal,
and to design the system to automatically trigger such actions as watering
or changing the temperature, based on the conditions of the air and
soil in which the plants grow.
The system was developed by ClimateMinder.
Initially a U.S.-based firm, ClimateMinder has been operating in Turkey
under the name Kodalfa
for the past two years. Kodalfa is now returning to the United States,
in partnership with mobile solutions company Partners
1993, which is taking a minority stake in ClimateMinder, with investments
in the form of cash and software-development services.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/5240
Sept.
18, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Alien Unveils Dynamic Security App for Higgs 3
Chip
Morgan Hill, Calif. RFID hardware manufacturer Alien
Technology has announced a new security application designed to
make RFID tags made with its Higgs 3 chip impossible to clone. The feature,
known as Dynamic Authentication, relies on a challenge/response algorithm
to verify that a tag is authentic, explains Victor Vega, Alien's marketing
director.
Alien began producing the Higgs 3 chip in April 2008 (see Alien
Technology Announces New EPC Gen 2 Chip), and while the chip has
had the dynamic authentication capability since then, the company is
now making available the reader software needed to unlock the functionality.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5230/1/1/
Sept.
9, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Strawberry Grower Deploys RFID to Fix Temperature
Troubles
Bionest, a Spanish
grower of organic strawberries, is deploying an RFID solution enabling
the company to view the temperature of the strawberries packed at its
processing facility, as well as record temperature fluctuations in a
truck while the berries are transported, and monitor the temperature
in real time once more at a retailer's distribution center (DC) in Germany.
. . . Dutch RFID firm Ambient's
Product Series 3000 is based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, on which
ZigBee is based. Each SmartPoint tag has a 2.4 GHz RFID chip, antenna
and battery, as well as a temperature sensor certified as compliant
with the EN-12830 standard, the European norm for temperature recorder
devices in the food supply chain. Although Ambient and ZigBee systems
are both based on IEEE 802.15.4—and, as a result, share some common
features (both operate at 2.4 GHz, for instance, and provide a data
rate of 250 kilobits per second)—they are also different from
each other. SmartPoint tags, for example, have the capability to determine
their own location in a network (in three-dimensional coordinates),
using a combination of RSSI (received signal strength indication) and
other techniques to calculate their own position.
The SmartPoint tags communicate with Ambient's wireless mesh network,
which consists of other SmartPoint tags, as well as Ambient MicroRouters,
which receive the tags' signals and transmit the tags' data, along with
their own location, to a GateWay reader that, in turn, forwards the
information to a back-end server.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5191/1/1/
Sept.
8, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Rewe Deploying Long-Range Real-Time Location RFID
System
At its DC in Buttenheim, Germany, the Rewe
Group is deploying Mojix's
STAR technology to help reduce the loss of pallets and other returnable
transport items, as well as automate their management.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5187/1/1/
Sept.
2, 2009 - RFID
Journal - A Conversation With Avery Dennison's James Stafford
The tag maker's head of RFID adoption explains how companies like shirt
manufacturer Seidensticker are benefiting from RFID, and describes the
technology's past, present and future - as well as his own.
Avery
Dennison supplies a range of RFID tags and labels, including those
for shipping containers, pallets and cartons, as well as for such items
as clothing, jewelry or cosmetics. James Stafford, the company's head
of RFID adoption since 2007, spoke with RFID Journal regarding the many
RFID deployments his company has been involved with - including that
of shirt maker Seidensticker.
Stafford also discussed his long career in the radio frequency identification
industry, along with his experiences at Marks
& Spencer,
where he led the retailer's RFID rollout.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5176/1/1/
Aug.
26, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Bloomingdale's Tests Item-Level RFID
Adding to the growing body of research and studies it has developed
in relation to the use of RFID in the supply chain, the RFID
Research Center, a part of the Information
Technology Research Institute (ITRI) at the Sam M. Walton College
of Business at the University of Arkansas, has published the results
of a 13-week item-level tagging initiative it had conducted at Bloomingdale's
stores last fall. The study's authors determined that when the retailer
relied solely on its current inventory management system (which shows
what should be on hand based on what has been received in shipments
and what has been sold), the accuracy of the inventory decreases over
time. But when inventory was counted using RFID, the accuracy was improved
by 27 percent. The researchers also found that using RFID to identify
and count individual items took, on average, 96 percent less time than
using bar codes for the same task. Finally, they found that using RFID
to determine which items had been stolen helped further improve inventory
accuracy.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5160/1/1/
Aug.
18, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Hong Kong Center Aims to Put China at the Forefront
of RFID Growth
The Asia Pacific region is expected to experience high growth in RFID
revenue due to rapid adoption of the technology in China, India, Thailand,
Taiwan and other countries. In a report published in June 2009, entitled
"Asia Pacific RFID Market," Frost
& Sullivan
cited market revenues of $569.7 million in 2008 for the region, predicting
that figure would reach $2.17 billion in 2015, at a compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of 21.1 percent.
Anticipating significant potential benefits in leading RFID adoption,
the Hong Kong government (HKSAR) established the Hong
Kong Logistics and Supply Chain Management Research and Development
Center (LCSM R&D) in April 2006. . . The LCSM currently provides
support to approximately 30 RFID projects involving more than 100 businesses
and local universities.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5146/1/1/
Aug.
13, 2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID News Roundup
The following are news announcements made during the last week.
UPM Raflatac launches Dogbone Freeze tag to track frozen goods
RFID tag manufacturer UPM
Raflatac has introduced a new ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) EPC RFID
tag, the Dogbone Freeze, designed to help track and identify frozen
foods, such as fish, meat, vegetables and ice cream, as the goods traverse
supply chains. The tag can withstand temperatures as low as -40 degrees
Celsius/Fahrenheit, offers up to 240 bits of EPC memory, and comes in
a thin, non-sandwich-type structure with a printable, white, synthetic
surface. It features a locked 64-bit tag identifier (TID), including
a 32-bit unique serial number, and can be directly applied to items,
cases and pallets. European retailer Metro
Group is now using the Dogbone Freeze at its distribution center
(DC) for frozen foods in Hamm, Germany, after testing a variety of tags
(see Metro
Sees Progress With Its Frozen-Foods Pilot) to track pallets of frozen
food, as well as the locations in which they are stored. The retailer
now attaches the Dogbone Freeze tags both on the pallets themselves
and in their storage areas, and RFID-enabled forklifts are used to read
the tags as the pallets are moved throughout the center. RFID interrogators
have also been installed at the DC's gates.
Siemens intros compact UHF readers for production, logistics
Siemens Energy
& Automation,
a provider of electrical and electronic products, systems and services
to the industrial and construction markets, has added two new compact
915 MHz ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID interrogators, the Simatic RF620R
and RF630R, to its Simatic portfolio. The Simatic RF620R is equipped
with an integrated antenna, while up to two external UHF antennas can
be connected to the Simatic RF630R. Both devices can read and encode
transponders conforming to the EPC Gen 2 and ISO 18000-6C standards,
and located up to 3 meters (10 feet) away. Their compact design enables
them to fit into tight spaces, and their Ingress Protection (IP) rating
of IP65 means they are protected against dust and low-pressure jets
of water from all directions, making them suitable for harsh industrial
environments. Both feature Simatic RF communication modules, and can
thus be integrated directly into S7 PLCs, as well as in many common
communication networks based on Ethernet (ProfiNet, EthernetIP and TCP/IP)
and Profibus.
SCM Microsystems announces new portable smart card readers;
Onity's new contactless locking solution to stay in 28 hotels; Rajant
secures FIPS 140-2 validation for portable mesh network device; OTA
Training creates RFID Australasian group.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5127/1/1/
Aug.
11, 2009 - RFID
Journal - New Impinj Reader Goes on Autopilot
RFID technology provider Impinj
is selling a new ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) EPC Gen 2 RFID interrogator,
known as the Speedway Revolution. This new reader will automatically
configure itself to adjust to external conditions, such as changes in
RFID tag density or the nearby presence of metallic objects.
. . . Speedway Revolution, which measures 6.75 inches by 5.5 inches
by 1 inch in height, can also be powered with an Ethernet cable in Power-over-Ethernet
(PoE) mode, meaning the installation of power lines is not required
for each interrogator. The four-port version costs $1,585, while the
two-port model costs $1,385. By comparison, the previous reader, the
Speedway, costs $1,985.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5119/1/1/
Aug.
11, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Global Postal Monitoring System Goes Live
RFID and the quality of letter delivery around the world are getting
a big boost as the Universal
Postal Union (UPU), a United Nations agency that fosters cooperation
between the postal organizations of 191 nations worldwide, implements
a wide-scale pilot involving EPC Gen 2 passive RFID tags and interrogators.
The pilot, launched earlier this month after the organization conducted
a similar test in the Middle East, will measure delivery times for letters
sent to and from 21 countries.
Postal service providers from the following nations are participating
in this first phase: Aruba, Chile, Greece, India, the Republic of Korea,
Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Norway, Peru, Qatar, Romania,
Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia,
United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. The U.N. agency plans to expand
the project, known as the Global Monitoring System (GMS), to up to 100
countries by 2012.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5122/1/1/
Aug.
11, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Coscon's Customers Use Tags to Monitor Cargo
Coscon Logistics,
a subsidiary of the Cosco
Container Lines Co. (Coscon), is employing new active tags and the
SaviTrak software platform, provided by Savi
Networks, to allow the logistics company's customers to track the
location and status of product-filled containers as they pass from China
to destinations throughout the world.
Each tag contains a GPS receiver to track its location, as well as
sensors that can monitor a container's internal temperature and humidity,
and detect when its door has been opened. When the tag is within range
of a GPRS/GSM cellular base station, it transmits its location and sensor
data to a back-end system, to be accessed by Coscon's customers (the
shippers of goods contained in those tagged containers). Each tag has
a GPRS transmitter with a SIM card for global roaming, as well as four
RF options (850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz) for worldwide operation. Savi
Networks, which was established in 2005 as a joint venture between RFID
systems provider Savi
Technology and cargo terminal operator Hutchison
Port Holdings. also provides another tag that includes a 2100 MHz
option in addition to the quad GSM bands, for operation in Korea and
Japan.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5123/1/1/
Aug.
5, 2006 - AIM
RFID Connections - RFID and Sensors: Game-Changing AIDC
RFID Connections spoke with Craig K. Harmon, President and CEO of Q.E.D.
Systems and a long time activist in international standardization, about
the current state of sensor standards and their potential impact on
RFID.
His views can be heard by clicking on the “podcast” in
the article. So if you don’t have time to read the interview now,
download it onto your iPod/MP3 player and listen in on your way home.
(more....)
http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/templates/template.aspx?articleid=3533
Aug.
3, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Omni-ID to Open Production Plant in China
After completing its most profitable quarter since its formation two
years ago, Omni-ID,
a manufacturer of passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags encased
in hard plastic, has opened a subsidiary manufacturing facility in China
to help the company meet its rising volume of orders. Betting that the
sagging economy will no longer pose a significant negative impact on
the demand for passive RFID tags, and that the expected economic growth
will result in greater RFID tag usage, the tag manufacturer - which
spun off from British defense and security technology company QinetiQ
in 2007 - is establishing the subsidiary to take on work currently handled
by third-party providers.
The Qingdao facility, known as Omni-ID High Science & Technology
Co., Ltd., will open in September 2009 within the Qingdao Export Processing
Zone (QDEPZ). The 20,000-square-foot facility will employ a staff of
50 workers and have the capacity to manufacture 6 million passive UHF
Gen 2 tags each year.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5100/1/1/
July
31, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Identec Solutions Intros ISO 18000-7 Tags, Readers
Identec Solutions
has released a new line of 433 MHz active tags and interrogators for
the commercial market based on the ISO 18000-7 standard. The series,
which the company had first developed for the U.S.
Department of Defense (DOD), includes six different active tags,
as well a handheld reader and several fixed models. The product line
will provide an alternative to proprietary 433 MHz solutions that RFID
tag users have been employing for tagging and tracking goods and containers
as they move around the world. Identec expects its new tags will have
a read range of 300 feet when employed with fixed interrogators, or
approximately 150 feet with handheld readers. Some of the tags have
sensors, as well as onboard memory options.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5098/1/1/
July
30, 2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID News Roundup
The following are news announcements made during the last week.
DOD awards new contracts for auto-ID technology
The U.S. Department
of Defense (DOD) has begun awarding indefinite delivery, indefinite
quantity (IDIQ) contracts to vendors as part of the U.S.
Army's Automatic Identification Technology-IV (AIT-IV) program.
The program is designed to provide the DOD, the U.S.
Coast Guard and other federal agencies with technologies - including
bar codes, contact and touch memory, thermal printing, biometrics, cellular,
satellite, and voice recognition communication - for locating and monitoring
assets and tracking logistics processes.
TagStone, OATSystems partner to serve companies in Middle East;
Invengo intros fixed RFID reader with Wi-Fi, GPRS and Bluetooth; FileTrail
unveils kit to help companies add RFID to file-tracking apps; Sunnyvale
Public Library books RFID for better service; PSA Security Network to
distribute Axcess International's Dot system.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5094/1/1/
July
28, 2009 - RFID
Journal - AIM Launches Campaign to Grow Membership, Participation
Automatic identification trade association AIM
Global has announced that it is restructuring itself and its AIM
North America division. A primary goal of this restructuring is
to attract more small North American RFID companies to the worldwide
parent association and its committees and activities. The association's
North American division has launched a drive to lower dues for small
companies, and to provide them with automatic membership to all of AIM's
international activities.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5089/1/1/
July
27, 2009 - RFID
Journal - DOD Completes Large-Scale Tests of Mesh-Networking
Tags
The U.S. Department
of Defense (DOD) recently completed large-scale tests of mesh-network
location-tracking asset tags from ARINC
and Impeva Labs.
The tests involved hundreds of battery-powered asset tags that formed
secure local mesh networks spanning up to half a mile in length.
With the ARINC-Impeva system, dubbed Next Generation Wireless Communications
(NGWC) for Logistics Applications, each tag on goods being transported
serves as a network node, transmitting its unique ID number and GPS
coordinates. The tag also forwards other tags' ID numbers and GPS coordinates,
encoded in signals it receives from neighboring tags. The tags employ
a proprietary 2.4 GHz mesh communication protocol to form a network
with each other, as well as with mobile RF gateways that transmit each
tag's ID number, GPS location and sensor data over secure long-range
communications channels, such as satellite, cellular or other available
networks, including WiMAX or Wi-Fi. Fixed locations, such as shipping
ports, would require only one or two gateways, because the tags communicates
with each other, thereby reducing the need for a great deal of infrastructure.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5087/1/1/
July
24, 2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID News Roundup
The following are news announcements made during the last week.
Metro Group expands RFID program in Asia, India
Checkpoint
Systems, a provider of RF- and RFID-based solutions for merchandise
identification, tracking and security, has announced it is working with
retailer Metro Group
to further expand the retailer's "Tag It Easy!" RFID program
into China and India.
ThingMagic unveils Gen 2 readers for fleet, trucking applications
ThingMagic,
a privately held supplier of RFID readers, has announced its new Vega
RFID interrogators, designed for use in commercial fleets, long-haul
trucks, service vehicles and other vehicles carrying cargo.
TOP Food & Drug expands RFID-based loyalty program; Rush
Tracking Systems acquires patents from International Paper; Nice RFID-enabled
bicycle rentals; IDTronic launches new readers.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5078
July
17, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Metro Group Says New Tag Helped It Meet Its RFID
Goals
After two years of employing radio frequency identification to track
some pallets of goods it ships to its supermarkets and wholesale food
stores, Metro Group
has fully deployed the system at all of its food markets in Germany,
and at least 89 in France. The retailer is using what it describes as
a new, more effective ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) tag: the AD-843, from
Avery Dennison.
The inlay was developed specifically for Metro Group, though it is now
being marketed to other customers who ship pallets with loads that can
make RFID reads difficult—such as products containing liquid,
or those packaged in metal cans.
Metro Group first began utilizing the AD-843 in January 2009. Thus
far, says Gerd Wolfram, managing director of MGI
Metro Group Information Technology, the company's IT services division,
the new tag gives the company nearly 100 percent read rates despite
being attached to pallets loaded with goods containing metal and fluids.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/5066
July
9, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Airbus Issues RFID Requirements, Expands RFID
Usage
Aircraft manufacturer Airbus
indicates it has distributed RFID requirements as part of its technical
specifications for suppliers worldwide for the A350 extra-wide body
(XWB) aircraft currently under development. In addition, the company
says it has embarked on number of new RFID projects, and has expanded
one it has already deployed.
Carlo K. Nizam, Airbus' head of value chain visibility and auto-ID—who
recently discussed the company's RFID efforts at the RFID
Journal LIVE! Middle East 2009 conference, held last month in Dubai—says,
"We have requested a combination of RFID and contact memory button
[CMB] part marking for a selection of parts on the A350."
. . . "We have created some criteria to help our suppliers assess
which parts should be tagged, either with RFID or contact memory buttons,"
Nizam says. "These criteria are contained with the requirement
documents that have already been distributed. For example, if a part
is serialized, repairable and replaceable, it would require either an
RFID tag or a CMB."
In pressurized areas of the aircraft, Nizam explains, RFID tags will
be employed. In unpressurized sections, however, it is likely that contact
memory buttons will be used, because of their greater robustness to
harsh environments compared with current ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) tags.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/5031/
July
3, 2009 - RFID
Journal - EU Group Seeks Collaboration Among RFID Standards
Bodies
The Global RFID
Interoperability Forum for Standards (GRIFS), met in Washington,
D.C., to establish a permanent body to foster communication and collaboration
among RFID standards bodies.
. . . GRIFS is funded by the European Commission, with the aim of maximizing
the interoperability of RFID standards. Since GRIFS was launched in
January 2008, it has been conducting meetings with representatives of
standards bodies around the world (see GS1,
ETSI, CEN Establish Global RFID Standards Forum and GRIFS
Issues Interim Report).
GRIFS has prepared a 217-page report, entitled "RFID
Standardization State of the Art," which identifies the organizations
currently creating RFID standards. These include the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the IEEE,
the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU-T), the European
Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
The report also summarizes the types of standards being created. GRIFS'
researchers have identified 125 RFID standards that have been created
thus far. These include standards for air interface protocols, as well
as others for tag data, and for ensuring standard conformance.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5020/1/1/
July
2, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Forest-Monitoring Sensors Harvest Energy From
Trees
The U.S. Forest Service
has confirmed that it will purchase a climate sensor network this summer
from Voltree Power
that is powered by energy harvested from living trees. The system employs
low-power radio transceivers, sensors and patented bioenergy-harvesting
technology to predict and detect fires.
. . . Voltree's wireless mesh network, which utilizes the ZigBee standard,
will integrate into a remote weather system to transmit data signals
from one unit to another, until it reaches a central monitoring station
built by Vaisala, a Finnish company that builds monitoring and measurement
systems for meteorology and the environment. These stations provide
a satellite microwave uplink connection enabling the system to share
information with numerous government agencies.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/5014/1/1/
June 15,
2009 - RFID
Journal - ATA Approves RFID Data Structures for Spec 2000
The Air Transport
Association (ATA), the United States' airline trade association,
will publish an update this month to Spec 2000 that covers the data
to be included regarding automatic data-capture devices, including radio
frequency identification tags, as well as the structure of that information.
The publication of the enhancements to Spec 2000 - a comprehensive set
of e-business specifications, products and services designed to enhance
supply chain efficiencies - represents a step forward as the industry
seeks to employ RFID to track airplane parts throughout their life cycle.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4974
June 11,
2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID Adopters Seek "Competitive Differentiation"
When it comes to the factors that matter most in regard to a company's
choice of whether or not to deploy radio frequency identification, the
technology's potential to improve data accuracy ranks high on the list
for both adopters and non-adopters. Organizations that have already
deployed the technology are more likely than non-adopters to base their
deployment decisions on RFID's ability to provide increased competitive
differentiation. Those that have not yet adopted, on the other hand,
are more likely to deem RFID's cost as one of the most important factors
when deciding whether or not to deploy.
Those were some of the main findings of a study conducted by a team
of researchers at the University
of Wollongong's Centre for Business Services Science, in Australia,
investigating the cause of RFID adoption delays. The research group
recently published a report, entitled "RFID
Adoption Issues," based on a survey of 133 RFID Journal readers.
The aim of the study, says one of its authors, Samuel Fosso Wamba, a
lecturer at the university's School of Information Systems & Technology
(SISAT), was to answer the question, "Why are some companies embracing
RFID, while others continue to sit on the fence?"
. . . A copy of the "RFID
Adoption Issues" report is available for download at the RFID
Academia Web site.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4970
June 3,
2006 - AIM
RFID Connections - RFID and the Cold Chain: A "Fresh"
Approach
It might seem that using temperature-logging sensor-equipped RFID tags
to help reduce waste in the perishable goods supply chain would be an
obvious solution. In fact, Doug Standley of Deloitte Consulting, which
cooperated with the University of Arkansas on a study of temperature
variations in refrigerated trailers, was quoted: "Loss and damage
of perishable goods during storage and transportation is a substantial
global issue, with some industry sources estimating that losses of up
to 33 percent on perishable freight are common."
So why, with such potential benefits, hasn't the cold chain widely
adopted this solution? Cost is probably one issue. But a larger one
may be that the so-called supply chain is, in many cases, a series of
independent "links" that do not yet have the logistics or
communications capabilities to deal with these tags or their data.
(more....)
http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/templates/template.aspx?articleid=3502
June 2,
2009 - RFID
Journal - Team to Develop Standards for Testing RFID in Health
Care
AIM Global,
in collaboration with the Georgia
Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and MET
Laboratories, will begin developing testing protocols for RFID technology
in the health-care setting, as well as the effects RFID may have on
implantable medical devices. If all goes as planned, says AIM Global's
president, Dan Mullen, the testing guidelines to be developed by the
group will be presented to the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval by December of this
year. The group signed an agreement last week, and intends to commence
the project immediately.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4936
May
26, 2009 - RFID
Journal - H&M Bay Cools Its Freight With RFID
Saturdays are busy days at the Federalsburg, Md., cross-docking distribution
center of H&M
Bay, a national less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier of frozen and
refrigerated goods. Late in the day every Friday, the company's fleet
of 130 or more trucks begins arriving with trailers loaded with beef,
seafood, bakery items and other temperature-sensitive goods.
To improve on its system of transferring freight from one truck to
another, the company decided in 2008 to install cold-storage rooms so
freight could be unloaded and stored in a temperature-controlled fashion
until it was ready to be loaded onto another vehicle. However, the firm
also realized that if it installed such cold-storage facilities, it
would require an RFID-enabled system that would allow it to locate products
in those rooms quickly, and to track the length of time each product
has been in and out of cold storage, as well as when it shipped. Now,
nine months after launching its new cold-storage operations, the company
has concluded that the RFID system has successfully fulfilled those
requirements, says John Walker, H&M Bay's software development manager.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4923/1/1/
May
18, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Nuclear Plant Operator Uses RFID to Promote Safety
Southern Co.
has completed a pilot testing an RFID-based system to train employees
in how to limit their exposure to radiation. The RFID system, provided
by Q-Track, feeds
a worker's location data to software that then calculates the level
of exposure that person would have received in a real-world scenario.
It's part of a simulated environment intended to train future employees
of the electric utility company's Plant Vogtle nuclear facility - located
in Waynesboro, Ga. - how to gauge their exposure. Staff members are
instructed to base their radiation exposure on a floor map of the factory
that demarks the locations of radiation hot spots, as well as to employ
dosimeter readers displaying the cumulative level of radiation encountered.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4887/1/1/
May
15, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Florida Court Ups Its RFID System
The Office of
the State Attorney for the 15th Judicial Circuit in West Palm Beach,
Fla., is saving approximately $100,000 annually by installing an RFID-based
tracking system for its felony case files within its four-story facility.
The savings are the result of drastically reducing the time spent manually
searching for the case files, according to Dan Zinn, CIO for the 15th
Judicial Circuit office. Since the initial deployment in 2007, the office
has upgraded the system to power the RFID interrogators via an Ethernet
connection, as well as added dozens of readers and provided RFID-enabled
badges for all of its employees.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4914/1/1/
May
13, 2009 - RFID
Journal - European Commission Issues RFID Privacy Recommendations
Industry and consumer organizations around Europe welcomed an official
"recommendation
on the implementation of privacy and data protection principles in applications
supported by radio-frequency identification." Issued this week
by the European Commission (EC), the document outlines data privacy
objectives suggested for use in the organization's 27 member states.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4890/1/1/
May
11, 2006 - VDC Research
Group - RFID Market Approaches $4B, Expect a Tough 2009
According to the latest results from VDC Research Group’s 6th
edition of its RFID Business Planning Service, the RFID market is expected
to grow approximately 11% this year, after reaching nearly $4 billion
in 2008.
Demand for RFID solutions softened in the fourth quarter of 2008, and
continued to contract in the first quarter of 2009. Based on current
opportunity pipelines and sales cycles, the next two quarters will continue
to present challenges to suppliers and their channel partners.
The consensus among the supplier community is that the negative segments
of the market will stabilize during the next six months, and return
to growth as early as Q4 this year.
The market overall is expected to see growth accelerate sometime in
the middle of 2010.
(more....)
http://www.vdcresearch.com/_documents/pressrelease/press-attachment-1513.pdf
May
8, 2009 - RFID
Journal - EPCglobal Reveals Details of Tokyo-Amsterdam Shipment
Project
EPCglobal,
a subsidiary of standards organization GS1,
has announced it has completed phase three of a multiyear global project
known as the Transportation and Logistics Services (TLS) Industry Action
Group RFID Pilot Program. An initial analysis of the project seems to
confirm that data read from 433 MHz active RFID container seals and
stored on an EPC Information Services (EPCIS) database can be shared
effectively by supply chain partners and customs agents in multiple
countries.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4857/1/1/
May 6, 2006 - AIM
RFID Connections - RFID is Dead...Long Live RFIT
At RFID Journal Live! in Orlando last week (28-29 April 2009) it became
obvious that RFID has outgrown the "identification" (ID) part
of the acronym and now deserves to be viewed as "information technology"
(IT). While there are still many applications requiring only a unique
ID, the range and scope of RF-enabled products and services clearly
indicate that the industry understands that RF tags are only one component
in a larger IT system. That means that it's not just important to identify
an item but also to gather data about it -- its location, condition,
attributes, etc. -- and then to manipulate, manage and benefit from
that data.
While many of the products announced at the event certainly deserve
attention for their innovative features -- whether it's sleeker design,
extended range, lower cost, or additional capabilities -- these are
essentially "black box" products that still need to be integrated
with a larger IT system.
Products that deserve the RFIT designation are offered as complete
solutions or are clearly harbingers of the next wave of integrated solutions.
These RFIT products spanned the spectrum from logistics to processing
to retail and beyond.
(more....)
http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/templates/template.aspx?articleid=3482
May
4, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Impinj Adds New Products, Agreements to Its Portfolio
RFID hardware manufacturer Impinj
has made a slew of announcements over the past few weeks, including
the introduction of a next-generation family of EPC Gen 2 interrogator
chips, a collaboration with RFID printer company Zebra
Technologies and RFID tag and label maker UPM
Raflatac, a distribution agreement with European distributor CISPER
Electronics, and more.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4847
Apr. 28,
2009 - RFID
Journal - ODIN Technologies Unveils End-to-End EPC Gen 2 Tracking
for Supply Chains
ODIN Technologies
has announced a system that can continuously track item-level EPC Gen
2 tags within a shipping container, then communicate that data via satellite,
cellular and active RFID, in order to provide organizations with end-to-end
visibility of their shipments.
. . . The system, known as the SMART Container, includes a control
unit (comparable in size to an average suitcase) that includes four
lithium batteries, power management, sensor controls, an integrated
computer, GPS and an external communications array (Iridium's low earth
orbit satellite technology, cellular, and active RFID). The system also
incorporates two of ODIN's new so-called Blackbird Wings, each of which
comes with an onboard EPC Gen 2 RFID interrogator, a proprietary antenna
array and an "intelligent configurator" that tunes antenna
power. Sensors that measure motion, sound and other characteristics
can be added to the Smart Container as well. The control unit and wings
are all contained in ruggedized enclosures, and the control units' batteries
have an average lifespan of approximately one year.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4832
Apr.
17, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Washington State Adopts Second RFID Privacy Law
Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire has signed into law a bill
prohibiting the scanning of an RFID tag by anyone except the business
or agency that issued that tag, with certain exceptions.
The legislation, known as House
Bill (HB) 1011, lists a dozen such exceptions, including situations
in which the scanning is part of a sales transaction initiated by the
tag holder, or data from an individual's identification device is remotely
read or stored in the course of an act of good-faith security research,
experimentation or scientific inquiry. The law is set to go into effect
on July 26, 2009.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4802/1/1/
Apr.
7, 2009 - RFID
Journal - AeroScout Intros New Ultrasound and Sensor Wi-Fi
RFID Tags
AeroScout, a
Redwood City, Calif., provider of a Wi-Fi-enabled RFID real-time location
system (RTLS), is unveiling several new additions to its product portfolio.
These include a new tag that incorporates ultrasound technology to make
it easier to locate an item, such as an infusion pump, in a specific
room, as well as new humidity and temperature sensors designed to help
health-care organizations more closely monitor environmental conditions
that can affect devices, patients, medicines and more.
The ultrasound solution includes new Wi-Fi active RFID tags that feature
integrated ultrasound receivers. The solution also comprises ultrasound
exciters that detect and communicate with the receivers, as well as
AeroScout's MobileView software, which provides users with graphical
maps, reporting and analytical tools, and alerting so organizations
can track tagged assets, patients and staff members in real time.
. . . AeroScout has also added new tags to its portfolio of environmental
monitoring tools. The company unveiled its AeroScout T5h Tag, which
has an integrated humidity and temperature sensor. The tag sends regular
updates over the Wi-Fi network regarding the measured relative humidity
and temperature in the area in which it is located.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4766/1/1/
Apr. 2,
2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID News Roundup
The following are news announcements made during the past week.
InSync Software Teams With IBM to Improve Food Safety
PepsiCo to Use RFID-enabled Reusable Plastic Pallets
PepsiCo has announced
to its national customers that its Quaker, Gatorade and Tropicana business
units will begin shipping all products on Intelligent
Global Pooling Systems' (iGPS) new all-plastic pallets. In a letter
to its customers, dated Mar. 20 and released by iGPS, PepsiCo indicates
the change is "addressing shipping platform quality concerns and
reflects our desire to be responsible stewards of the environment."
PepsiCo adds that as of Apr. 1, the Quaker and Gatorade business units
will begin integrating iGPS' pallets into their networks completely
across all stock-keeping units (SKUs), with the expectation of shipping
exclusively on the iGPS platform as soon as all inventory on wood pallets
is consumed. The Tropicana chilled business will convert beginning May
1. All iGPS pallets feature embedded EPC Gen 2 RFID tags that iGPS uses
to track the pallets, which are rented by customers. In addition, iGPS'
customers can utilize the RFID tags to track and trace their own shipments.
According to Gary Garkowski, iGPS' VP of marketing, all three of PepsiCo's
business units' facilities will be equipped with either handheld RFID
interrogators or door-mounted readers (depending on the facility), in
order to collect tag reads as pallets enter or exit facilities. The
readers share that data with an iGPS server on site, Garkowski says,
which then sends it to a back-end server at an iGPS-operated data center,
via an Internet connection.
Ingecom Unveils Second-Generation Active Tag
Wi-Fi RTLS provider Ekahau intros location beacons and survey tool;
NFC Forum, ETSI partner to promote global interoperability of NFC solutions;
Hi-G-Tek, Trojan Defense collaborate on nuclear threat system.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4746
Apr.
1, 2006 - AIM
RFID Connections - RFID: Legislative Action
At some recent legislative hearings on whether to limit, regulate or
restrict RFID in some way, advocates of RFID finally began to get their
views heard. Why? Because many of the advocates weren't companies manufacturing
or selling RFID, they were companies and agencies actively using the
technology. They were able to point out to state legislators how the
technology was actively benefitting citizens of the state. And their
real world experiences helped put to rest some of the more outlandish
claims of some privacy advocates.
(more....)
http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/templates/template.aspx?articleid=3470
Mar.
30, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Two Food Chains Trial RFID-based Electronic Shelf
Labels
Two U.S. grocery-store chains are trialing an electronic shelf label
(ESL) system in several of their stores on the East and West coasts.
The ESL system, provided by Altierre,
comprises RFID-based LCD displays that attach to store shelves to identify
products and their prices, enabling immediate shelf-side updates of
product data. The system can be managed from a remote location and help
the stores avoid using millions of paper labels annually. According
to Sunit Saxena, Altierre's chairman and CEO, the system has been six
years in the making, and has been piloted for the past nine months.
. . . "We found no chip existed to meet the cost needs, the low
power requirements or the read range we wanted," Saxena explains.
So the company developed its own 2.4 GHz RFID chip with a proprietary
air-interface protocol for use in its electronic shelf label, which
also contains a coin battery and a chip that controls the label's LCD
screen. Each label's RFID chip stores the product's stock-keeping unit
(SKU) number, name, price and other information.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4737/1/1/
Mar.
25, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Taiwan Customs Officials Adopt RFID-enabled Container
Seals
At Kaohsiung Harbor, one of the 10 largest ports in the world, more
than 1 million transit containers are imported and exported annually.
To prevent smuggling, Taiwan Customs officers are required to escort
some 50,000 unloaded containers each year from the carrier yard, through
downtown, to one of the port's five container terminals.
. . . In 2004, the Taiwanese Government sought to replace manual escorts
with an automated system to improve security and efficiency, as well
as cut costs by reducing manned escorts.
Between 2004 and 2006, the Kaohsiung Customs Office called on bidders
four times to deliver an automated, RFID-based electronic seal (e-seal)
system, says section chief Hai-Hsiao Wang. Each bid, however, failed
to meet the department's high standards.
"The bidders could not reach the required criteria of a 95 percent
read rate," Wang says, "and the main reason was domestic manufacturers
could not control the accuracy of the technology over long distances,
or the stability of the electronic seal."
Enter Yeon
Technologies, a local hardware supplier that provides both Impinj's
Speedway readers and its own specially designed tamper-proof Yeon YTE-100
e-seal. The e-seal has a bolt containing a passive ultrahigh-frequency
(UHF) chip encoded with a unique ID number.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4727/1/1/
Mar.
24, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Coca-Cola Bottle Maker Adds RFID to the Mix
After successfully testing an RFID-enabled system to count the usage
cycles of approximately 6,000 plastic bins at its injection-molding
facility in Enka, N.C., plastic bottle manufacturer Southeastern
Container is now expanding the system to two other facilities. Ultimately,
the company plans to track up to 40,000 of the bins, which are used
to transport preformed plastic tubes (or preforms) produced at its injection-molding
facilities, to Southeastern Container's blow-molding facilities, where
the preforms are then blown into bottles.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4725/1/1/
Mar.
17, 2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID Illuminates Work-in-Progress for Neonlite
Hong Kong energy-saving lightbulb manufacturer Neonlite
Electronic & Lighting
(maker of Megaman products distributed in more than 80 countries worldwide)
is employing radio frequency identification and its own enterprise resource
planning (ERP) system to manage product manufacturing, inventory and
shipment at one of its four manufacturing plants. The system - installed
in January 2009 at its plant in Xiamen, China, and provided by software
company Infor -
utilizes RFID hardware from Intermec
Technologies to track work-in-progress as trays of parts used to
make the lamps move through the assembly line. GlobeRanger
provided software for the deployment.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4691/1/1/
Mar.
10, 2009 - RFID
Journal - American Eagle Puts RFID on Ground Fleet
American
Eagle, the sister carrier to American
Airlines, is implementing an RFID-, sensor- and GPS-enabled system
that the regional airline says will help better manage its fleet of
ground support equipment (GSE) at the Dallas/Fort
Worth International Airport. The system's provider, I.D.
Systems, reports that not only will the solution improve the GSEs'
security, it should also help American Eagle reduce operating costs,
as well as improve its flight operations by ensuring aircraft are efficiently
maintained, loaded and unloaded.
According to Kenneth Ehrman, I.D. Systems' president, COO and director,
the airline is outfitting several hundred of its GSEs with I.D. Systems'
AvRamp Wireless Vehicle Management System (VMS), which includes active
RFID tags known as Vehicle Asset Communicators (VACs). Each VAC has
a GPS unit attached to it, in order to track a vehicle's location. That
location is then communicated via a 900 MHz signal to I.D. Systems'
interrogators and antennas, which can be affixed to buildings (a reader
is typically installed indoors, while the 6-inch-wide, external antenna
is mounted outside, on the building). The VACs offer a read range of
between a half-mile and a mile, the company reports. At the Dallas/Fort
Worth airport, which spans approximately 7 or 8 miles, I.D. Systems
plans to deploy about 10 to 20 readers on various buildings, Ehrman
says. The implementation, which is just getting underway, is expected
to be completed by late spring or early summer of this year. American
Eagle declined to be interviewed for this story.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4657/1/1/
Mar.
5, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Walgreens, Revlon Affirm Value in Tagging Promotional
Displays
Walgreens, the
United States' largest drugstore chain, has completed a nationwide installation
of an RFID tracking solution for promotional displays in all but a few
of its 5,000 stores. Cosmetics firm Revlon
has announced that data derived from the system has helped it achieve
increased sales from its promotions at Walgreens.
The deployment began in 2007 (see Walgreens
to Use Tagged Displays), as the result of eight years of pilots
and testing that involved the system's developer, Goliath
Solutions, as well as Revlon and other consumer packaged goods (CPG)
vendors. In addition, the drugstore chain soon plans to test an upgraded
version of the system that would allow RFID interrogators to be utilized
with EPC Gen 2 UHF tags rather than with the proprietary semi-passive
tags currently in use.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4660/1/1/
Mar. 5,
2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID News Roundup
The following are news announcements made during the past week.
ODIN Serves Up Free RFID Expertise Online
RFID systems integrator ODIN
Technologies has unveiled a free, online educational service, known
as "Ask the RFID Expert." The service, introduced this week
at the Financial Services Technology Consortium's (FSTC) annual conference
in Sarasota, Fla., is designed to provide access to RFID experts, free
of charge. Users can visit ODIN's
Web site and enter their question in the "Ask the RFID Expert"
box in the upper right-hand corner. Answers will be posted within 24
hours on the site's "Ask the RFID Expert" page, or sent directly
to the inquirer via e-mail. Depending on the question, ODIN's technical
team may ask clarifying questions, simply post an answer or point the
questioner to additional information sources. The "Ask the RFID
Expert" service will answer end-user RFID questions across a range
of RFID technologies, including low-frequency (LF), high-frequency (HF),
ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) and 2.45 GHz ultra-wideband (UWB) tags, whether
passive or active. In addition to the new service, ODIN reports, the
company's site also offers white papers, how-to articles, introductory
videos and more.
Fluensee Links Its RFID Solution With BMC's Asset-Management
App
RFIDTRaxx Delivers RFID-enabled Document-Tracking Software
NXP Intros Mifare Ultralight C Chip, Confidex Debuts Transit Tickets
Made With New IC
NXP Semiconductors
has added a new integrated circuit, the Mifare Ultralight C, to its
family of contactless identification technology offerings. The chip
leverages open-standard 3DES cryptography to protect data access, enable
the authentication of disposable ticketing solutions and protect against
fraud and cloning. According to NXP, the new IC is certified to the
ISO/IEC 14443 A standard, and has been designed to be suitable for emerging
NFC Forum Tag 2 applications, such as URL linking, Bluetooth pairing
and smart posters, which can be accessed with NFC-enabled mobile devices.
It also has 1536 bits (192 bytes) of Electrically Erasable Programmable
Read-Only Memory (EEPROM), a built-in 16-bit counter that can be leveraged
for trip counter mechanisms in contactless systems, a data rate of 106
kilobits per second, and bit-wise anti-collision. There are two versions
of the chip: 17pF for ID-1-sized tickets, and 50pF for smaller tags.
Finnish tag maker Confidex
has launched a new family of limited-use contactless tickets, known
as Confidex SafeRide, that employ the Mifare Ultralight C as the chip
of choice, providing the tickets with extended memory and increased
security features.
ZigBee Alliance, RF4CE Create New Specification
The ZigBee Alliance
and the RF4CE (Radio Frequency for Consumer Electronics) industry consortium
are joining forces. The ZigBee Alliance is an association of companies
working to define ZigBee standards, provide interoperability and conformance
testing specifications, and promote the technology's adoption. The RF4CE,
founded in 2008 by Panasonic, Philips, Samsung Electronics and Sony,
is working to develop a protocol that will further the adoption of RF
remote controls for audiovisual devices. Together, the ZigBee Alliance
and RF4CE have reached an agreement to deliver a standardized specification
for radio frequency (RF)-based remote controls. . . . .
RFID Has Another Run on Italian Ski Slopes
Awarepoint, Skytron Sign Exclusive RTLS Distribution Deal
Medical equipment and software distributor Skytron
has extended its contract with Awarepoint,
a maker of real-time location system (RTLS) solutions based on the ZigBee
standard. The new, exclusive contract is the result of Skytron Asset
Manager, a solution announced one year ago. . . .
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4654
Mar.
2, 2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID Helps Thermo King Streamline Parts Replenishment
To ensure that the quantity of parts it maintains in inventory remains
optimal, Thermo
King, a manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning
equipment for buses, trains and trucks, is employing an active RFID
system.
Using AeroScout
tags, the system is built onto the company's existing Wi-Fi system and
was integrated by IMEC
Technologies in Thermo King's Galway production facility, located
on the west coast of Ireland.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4644
Mar.
2, 2009 - RFID
Journal - U.K. Startup Debuts High-Performance Handheld
EPC Gen 2 Readers
PeopleVox,
a U.K.-based startup company focused on RFID solutions for retail and
supply chain applications, has unveiled its first product—a series
of lightweight handheld RFID interrogators that supports the EPC Gen
2 standard. Designed to help retailers accurately and quickly take inventory,
the readers can scan up to 350 RFID-tagged garments within 40 seconds,
the company reports, even if those garments are stacked or hanging tightly
together on racks.
The PeopleVox PVX-50 is designed to be integrated with mobile handheld
devices, such as Motorola's
CA50 wireless bar-code scanner, a handheld with voice, text messaging
and wireless bar-code scanning capabilities, all via wireless LAN. The
PVX-50 snaps into the CA50, adding EPC Gen 2 functionality. Thus, retail
clerks can employ the handhelds to regularly check inventory via RFID,
as well as receive and send text messages, or make phone calls. A manager,
for instance, could send a text message to clerks out on the floor,
thereby alerting them to a new promotion, or directing them to move
merchandise from one area of a shop to another.
The PeopleVox PVX-100 is a standalone RFID reader incorporating its
own display screen, LED indicators and input buttons. The PVX-100 contains
Bluetooth technology so it can easily communicate with a variety of
other handheld devices, such as Compaq's iPAQ and Motorola's MC70, both
of which combine the functions of a cell phone, PDA and computer. "There
are lots of handhelds with Bluetooth already in use at retail stores,"
says Jonathan Bellwood, PeopleVox's managing director, "and the
PVX-100 allows those retailers to easily add RFID capability to their
existing systems."
James Stafford, head of RFID adoption for Avery
Dennison's information and brand management division, recently tested
the PVX-50 to determine how well it would perform with a variety of
the company's EPC Gen 2 labels. . . .
According to Bellwood, the PeopleVox reader can scan 350 items in less
than 40 seconds, with 99.99 percent accuracy. "No one believes
us when we say 100 percent, but it was 100 percent when we tested it,"
he notes. "And we do need to account for tag defects."
. . . Both the PVX-50 and PVX-100 are available now for pilots and
testing, and PeopleVox is currently planning several tests with retailers
in Europe. The expected price for the units, the company reports, will
range from €2,000 to €2,500 ($2,546 to $3,182).
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4641
Mar.
2, 2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID Detector Offers Low-Cost Troubleshooting
Device
A new device from Montie
Design, a newcomer to the radio frequency identification market,
will enable RFID users and installers to detect whether an RFID interrogator
is operating properly during or after installation. The $20 device fits
into a pocket or clips to an ID badge, and is currently being marketed
to RFID installers and users.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4646
Feb.
24, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Jackson Memorial Enlists Thousands of RFID Tags
to Track Assets
By mid-March, the Miami hospital will have deployed 12,000 tags to track
a variety of medical equipment, with plans to add another 8,000 in a
second phase of implementation. Thanks to a newly installed real-time
location system (RTLS) from Awarepoint
that the hospital is utilizing to track thousands of items throughout
its nearly 4-million-square-foot, multi-building campus.
. . . To date, Jackson Memorial Hospital, a 1,500-bed teaching hospital
that is part of the Jackson
Health System, has affixed approximately 6,500 active RFID tags
on everything from infusion pumps to wheelchairs to ultrasound machines.
By mid-March, Thacker, two contractors and three hospital staffers are
expected to have tagged a total of 12,000 assets, affording everyone
from doctors and nurses to pharmacy personnel and therapists the ability
to search for and locate equipment throughout the facility.
. . . The tags operate at 2.48 GHz, transmitting their unique ID numbers
over the 802.15.4 (ZigBee) communications protocol, to small receivers
(which Awarepoint refers to as sensors) that plug directly into standard
120-volt AC wall outlets. A tag or sensor can pass data to a main access
point (known as a bridge) by first transmitting it to another tag, which
then forwards the information to a third tag or sensor, or to the main
access point, depending on whether the second tag is in range of the
main access point. In the Awarepoint network, a tag can send data to
a bridge through up to five other tags and receivers. The receiver forwards
a tag's ID number and signal strength to a bridge, along with its own
ID number and the time it read the tag, as well as the ID of the transceiver
that may have previously picked up the tag's signal.
The bridges link, via an Ethernet cable, to a central Awarepoint server
that calculates the locations of all tagged assets, then displays that
information on a map of the facility. Any computer linked to the system's
local area network (LAN) can access the map and employ Awarepoint's
software to search for a specified type of asset. According to the company,
the software can provide the item's location to an accuracy level of
1 to 3 meters (3 to 10 feet). The Jackson Memorial deployment, the company
reports, provides an average location accuracy of 1.5 meters (4.9 feet)
or better throughout the hospital, including in-room locations, as well
as hallways and other defined areas.
Awarepoint utilizes a proprietary algorithm to determine asset locations,
based on the tags' RF signal strength. Generally, the firm reports,
Awarepoint's RTLS requires one sensor per every 1,000 square feet, and
one bridge per every 20,000 square feet.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4638/1/1/
Feb.
24, 2009 - RFID
Journal - U.S. Army Achieves Real-Time Visibility of Supply
Trucks Traveling in the Middle East
Approximately 365 trucks carrying everything from uniforms to computers
to medicine for the U.S. military are being monitored in real time as
they travel from Jordan, Dubai and Kuwait into the battle zones of Iraq.
This is being achieved thanks to a remote tracking solution implemented
and managed by Impeva
Labs, a provider of asset-management systems, and logistics provider
Agility.
. . . .The solution uses an Impeva device known as a Global Sentinel
Unit (GSU), which is mounted onto a truck and, like an active RFID tag,
transmits a unique serial number and GPS data, thereby identifying the
vehicle and its location. Rather than communicate with an RFID reader,
however, the GSU transmits its data via global satellite and multi-band
cellular networks.
The Global Sentinel Units, which can also store each truck's manifest,
are battery-powered and contain a GPS receiver, as well as the satellite
and cellular modems. The units can be programmed for more than 40 user-defined
geographic zones, and can be set to initiate a communication if a GSU
travels outside of those zones. The devices can also be queried at any
time.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4634/1/1/
Feb.
24, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Hybrid Tag Includes Active RFID, GPS, Satellite
and Sensors
Numerex, an Atlanta-based
provider of fixed and mobile machine-to-machine wireless solutions and
network services, and RFID systems supplier Savi
Technology have unveiled an intelligent hybrid tag that combines
active RFID, satellite communications and Global Positioning System
(GPS) technologies. The tag is designed to track goods anywhere within
a global supply chain, whether they are waiting in a warehouse, being
loaded onto a ship or sitting in a desert at a bare-bones military outpost.
The tag, known as the ST-694 GlobalTag, has been in development since
the summer of 2007, as part of a cooperative research and development
contract for the U.S
Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), the U.S.
Department of Defense (DOD) group responsible for creating and implementing
global deployment and distribution solutions for the U.S. military and
government.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4635/1/1/
Feb.
19, 2009 - RFID
Journal - IT-Austria Taps RFID to Track Assets
IT-Austria,
which operates large data centers for the Austrian financial sector
and reported sales of €165 million in 2007, has implemented EPC
RFID technology to track IT assets through their complete lifecycles,
from purchase through installation, operation, maintenance and disposal.
The project was completed at the end of 2008, at three separate data
center sites in Vienna, and includes approximately 10,000 tagged components,
such as server racks, IT hardware and other office equipment.
Technology solution provider Tricon
and Rodi IT Consulting,
an independent project consultancy, helped implement the system, which
employs a variety of tags and tag housings designed to fit different
types of IT assets, and able to be attached to metal, plastic or glass.
All of the tags contain EPC Gen 2 RFID inlays from Alien
Technology.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4611/1/1/
Feb. 18,
2009 - RFID
Journal - Intel, University Researchers Develop Power-Storing
Passive Tags
It might sound like science fiction, but Joshua Smith, a principal engineer
at Intel
Research Seattle, and his team of scientists from Intel and the
University of Washington
are working to develop passive RFID-enabled sensors that operate on
power pulled out of thin air. Stated more precisely, the tags would
harvest ambient RF power—that is, already existing RF emissions
transmitted by any number of sources, including television, radio and
cell phone base stations.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4613
Feb. 13,
2009 - RFID
Journal - Procter & Gamble Halts Tagging of Promotional Displays
The Procter & Gamble
Co. (P&G), a pioneer in the use of Electronic Product Code (EPC)
technologies in the supply chain, has ceased placing EPC tags on promotional
displays bound for Wal-Mart's
RFID-enabled stores. Kim Zimmer, Procter & Gamble's leader for global
EPC RFID technology and operations, sent an e-mail this week to the
company's contract manufacturers, stating: "P&G has made the
decision to end the EPC Display Tagging project at Wal-Mart, effective
immediately."
The e-mail instructed contract manufacturers not to order any additional
EPC RFID tags, and not to apply any tags they already have in stock.
These companies were also asked to return to P&G's EPC lab the laptop,
handheld RFID reader and wireless router that P&G had provided to
enable them to capture EPC data before shipping displays to Wal-Mart,
as well as any tags not already applied to displays.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4619
Feb.
13, 2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID Returns Investments Within 18 Months, Users
Say
Data culled from ABI Research's annual RFID study indicates the majority
of companies currently using RFID technology expect a return on their
investments within 18 months or less.
. . . According to data gathered by ABI
Research, a market research firm focused on wireless technologies, for its
Annual
RFID End-User Survey report, 74 percent of companies that currently
have RFID systems installed and are piloting and/or evaluating additional
RFID applications expect to achieve a positive ROI within 18 months
of deployment. The data, collected during a survey of 185 organizations
conducted in mid-2008, also revealed that 42 percent of those firms
expect to achieve a positive ROI within 12 months.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4620
Feb.
12, 2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID News Roundup
The following are news announcements made during the past week.
SmarTrac begins volume production of RFID inlays in the United
States;
Omni-ID secures $15 million in funding;
RuBee becomes IEEE international RFID standard;
The Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has approved RuBee,
a long-wavelength, peer-to-peer packet-based, magnetic transceiver protocol,
as a new international standard, to be known as IEEE 1902.1. RuBee tags
can be either active or passive, operating at 132 kHz.
Visible
Assets and Seiko
Epson Corp., which developed the technology on which RuBee is based
(see Visible
Assets Promotes RuBee Tags for Tough-to-Track Goods), sponsored
the creation of the standard and the workgroup that vetted it. The RuBee
tag is designed for tracking assets in harsh environments, and can be
utilized in the presence of liquids and metals, which can interfere
with RF signals. According to Visible Assets, the tag has a read range
between 10 to 50 feet, depending on antenna configuration, and can be
powered by a single coin-size lithium battery with a lifespan of five
to more than 15 years. A license to use IP complying with the IEEE 1902.1
standard is available from Visible Assets, and hardware based on the
RuBee standard is available from a variety of sources.
Ubisense, S3-ID partner on RTLS for oil and gas industry;
Feig Electronics delivers RFID-enabled parking system;
Thailand bank, merchants to trial contactless payments with mobile phones.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4616
Feb.
9, 2009 - RFID
Journal - End Users Plan to Invest Strategically in RFID
in 2009
An RFID Journal survey of 100 end users and potential end users of RFID
reveals companies are deploying radio frequency identification technologies
to help them weather the economic downturn by cutting costs and improving
internal processes and operations. Most view the technology as a tool
that can help them cut costs now, as well as improve long-term efficiencies
and gain a competitive advantage.
The full survey results have been published in the January/February
issue of RFID Journal magazine, and are now available online (see Companies
Re-evaluate RFID Deployments).
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4580/1/1/
Feb.
9, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Ortrander Ironworks Rolls Out Real-Time Location
System
Ortrander Eisenhütte,
an iron foundry located near Dresden, Germany, is rolling out an RFID-based
system to track forklifts and containers at its facilities. The system,
when fully implemented, will employ ultra-wideband (UWB) active RFID
tags for tracking 20 to 30 forklifts, as well as passive ultrahigh-frequency
(UHF) EPC Gen 2 RFID tags for tracking 10,000 metal containers and their
contents.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4588/1/1/
Feb.
6, 2009 - RFID
Journal - United Airlines Tests RFID to Speed Baggage and
Passenger Check-In
United Airlines
- together with Star
Alliance, a global association comprising 21 airlines that works
to improve the flying experience of its members' passengers, and the
Transportation Security
Agency (TSA) - has begun testing an RFID system to speed baggage
and passenger check-in for frequent flyers at Chicago's O'Hare International
Airport. The airline alliance, which counts United as a member, is testing
whether using radio frequency identification to identify passengers
and their luggage could hasten the check-in process.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4608/1/1/
Feb.
4, 2006 - AIM
Insights - RFID: Curbing Shrink in a Tight Economy
According to the Global Retail Theft Barometer, retailers experienced
total shrinkage of $105B in 2008. Of that, more than half, $62B, was
reportedly the result of employee theft, vendor discrepancies and various
internal errors. With today's economy, these numbers are likely to grow.
Curbing supply chain and in-store shrink should be a major initiative
for retailers -- and identifying its source is the first step.
RFID certainly offers the promise to help curb shrink. Vendor labeling
is the key to a successful program to improve visibility throughout
the supply chain but it may be the toughest to achieve. Many vendors
claim their existing bar code systems are already adequate but underlying
objections might be that vendors do not see any direct benefits and
may not want to expose inefficiencies and errors in their operations.
But there are ways to overcome these objections or, at least, expose
them for what they are.
(more....)
http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/templates/template.aspx?articleid=3425
Feb.
2, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Tego Launches 32-Kilobyte EPC RFID Tag
Startup tag maker Tego
has taken the wraps off its first product, the TegoTag, a passive RFID
tag with 32 kilobytes of memory—far more than current UHF EPC
Gen 2 tags. The extra memory, the company reports, will enable companies
to encode large amounts of information to the tag, as well as access
that data directly from the tag, without the need for battery power
and using a standard EPC Gen 2 interrogator.
According to Tego, the TegoTag is compliant with aspects of Spec 2000,
an aviation industry standard administered by the Air
Transport Association that defines methods for sharing information
among airlines, manufacturers, suppliers and repair agencies.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4578/
Feb.
3, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Chip-size Passive RFID Tag Promises Long Range
Silicon Valley startup company Tagent
had developed an ultra-wideband (UWB) passive tag RFID system that will
be piloted this summer at a California medical lab. The new system,
according to Geoff Zawolkow, the company's VP of marketing and business
development, will offer a locating capability and read range comparable
to that of an active UWB tag, but in a form factor and price that would
allow them to attach the tags to disposable labels.
The Talon system features the Talon Integrated RTLS Tag, a 2-millimeter
(0.1-inch) passive RFID chip with a built-in antenna. The system also
includes a specially designed RFID interrogator, as well as a network
of power nodes that emit a 5.8 GHz RF signal that energizes the tags.
The power nodes, deployed 2 meters (6.6 feet) apart from one another,
can also be used to determine a chip's location.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4585/1/1/
Feb.
2, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Digital Angel Announces Active Tags for Livestock
Ranchers and other producers and handlers of livestock will soon have
a new tool at their disposal for tracking the locations of animals in
real time, and with greater precision. RFID vendor
a href="http://www.digitalangel.com/" target="_blank">Digital
Angel has announced a new, battery-powered animal identification
tag, known as the r.Tag, that the company says can be read from up to
100 feet away. The r.Tag, according to Digital Angel, allows more efficient,
accurate livestock tracking than is presently available using other
tags.
Passive RFID tags operating at 134.2 kHz, and compliant with the ISO
11784 and 11785 RFID tag standards, have long been utilized for livestock
identification. The tags must be located within a few inches of an interrogator
in order to be read, however, requiring livestock producers to force
animals to move through narrow checkpoints to be counted, and making
it impossible to read the tags of a large number of animals simultaneously.
The r.Tag can be set to transmit an identification number at a regular
interval. According to David Sullivan, president of
Destron
Fearing, the Digital Angel subsidiary that is bringing the r.Tag
system to market, this signal is sent at 2.45 GHz to readers that can
then relay that data to other interrogators located up to 100 feet away,
passing the information through a mesh network until it reaches a receiver,
where it can be collected and processed. Sullivan says the r.Tag and
readers employ a proprietary air-interface protocol to transmit and
receive tag data.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/4581/
Jan.
30, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Texas Instruments Reorganizes RFID Business
Texas Instruments
(TI), one of the leading manufacturers of radio frequency identification
technology, has reorganized its RFID operations and laid off some employees
of its RFID business. However, the company says it is not pulling out
of the RFID market, and that its customers will not be impacted by the
reorganization.
"We announced that we would be eliminating 3,400 positions, and
some of those were from our RFID team based in Dallas, but rumors that
we are withdrawing from the market are false," says Ellen Zeidler,
TI's communications manager. "We will continue to serve our customers
in asset tracking, livestock and the automotive sector."
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4572
Jan.
22, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Australia Approves 4 Watts of Power for UHF RFID
The Australian Communications
and Media Authority (ACMA), the government body responsible for
regulating radio frequencies, has approved the use of ultrahigh frequency
(UHF) RFID interrogators transmitting up to 4 watts EIRP (effective
isotropic radiated power), removing restrictions and bringing the country
into line with international practices. The decision follows four years
of testing on the use of 4-watt RFID interrogators by GS1
Australia and could lead to a significant increase in take-up of
the technology.
The majority of countries around the world limit RFID applications
to 4 watts EIRP or 2 watts ERP (effective radiated power), which is
the equivalent to 3.2 watts EIRP. But ACMA was concerned about the potential
interference of UHF RFID systems in close proximity to GSM-based mobile
phone systems and restricted the use of such systems to 1 watt EIRP
at the 918 to 926 MHz band under a Low-Interference Potential Devices
(LIPD) license.
Typically, RFID devices are imported to Australia from the United States,
where UHF RFID interrogators and tags operate in the 902 MHz to 928
MHz band. In Australia, however, GSM-based cell phone service provider
Vodafone Australia
has the right to utilize the 907 MHz to 915 MHz frequency band, while
RFID interrogators and tags are allowed to operate at 918 MHz to 926
MHz.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4565/1/1/
Jan.
23, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Invengo Debuts in the U.S. Market With 5.8-Cent
Inlay
Invengo Technology
Corp., a 16-year-old Chinese RFID hardware manufacturer, is making
its U.S. debut this week with a UHF EPC Gen 2 inlay priced at what appears
to be a record-setting price: 5.8 cents apiece.
Although well-known in the Asian market - Invengo conducts business
in China, Japan, Singapore and other countries in that region - the
firm has not sold its tags and interrogators in the United States until
now. "The company is very well established, probably one of the
biggest RFID companies in the world, and employs about 300 people,"
says Philip Calderbank, Invengo's VP of sales and marketing. "But
we know that Invengo is not well-known in the United States, and so
we decided we needed to do something really impressive."
The new XCTF-8030 inlay uses NXP
Semiconductor's Ucode G2XL chip. The low price, offered for volume
orders of 5 million, drops even further for larger orders. Even at orders
of 1 million, the inlay's price is only 6.0 cents, which Calderbank
says is lower than any other ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) inlay currently
available on the market.
"Almost two years ago, Avery
Dennison announced a 7.9 cents price point [see Avery
Dennison, RSI ID Lower Price Bar], and Avery's prices are still
the same," Calderbank says. "Alien
Technology's pricing has come down just below 7 cents. With all
the research I've done, I'm still seeing Alien's prices at very close
to 7 cents. We feel we've got a full penny advantage."
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4564/1/1/
Jan. 22,
2009 - RFID
Journal - RFID News Roundup
The following are news announcements made during the past week.
Avery Dennison Intros EPC Gen 2 Inlay for Tagging Small Items
Avery Dennison's
RFID division has introduced the AD-805—an RFID tag inlay
about the size of a postage stamp. According to the company, the inlay's
small size makes the AD-805 suitable for tagging small items in densely
packed retail and health-care environments. The inlay is shaped in an
"S" pattern and has an "edge-on" reading capability,
which means its narrowest portion—its edge—can be oriented
toward the interrogator and still be read. Because of this edge-on reading
capability, Avery Dennison reports, the AD-805 can be employed for plastic
or cardboard blister packs. The inlay complies with the EPC Class 1
Gen 2 and ISO-18000-6C standards, as well as the European Union's Restriction
of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive, which restricts the use of
six hazardous materials in the manufacture of various types of electronic
and electrical equipment. The AD-805 inlay is available now.
Wavetrend Announces an Active RFID Module for Handheld Computers
Wavetrend, a U.K. provider of active RFID solutions based in Surrey,
has announced an expansion module that adds active RFID reader capability
to Psion Teklogix's Workabout Pro rugged handheld computer.
Researchers to Develop Bridge Monitoring Systems
Thanks to a multimillion-dollar research grant, engineers from the University
of Texas at Austin (UT), National Instruments (NI), a maker of automated
test equipment and virtual instrumentation software based in Austin,
and Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, a Northbrook, Ill., engineering
firm, hope to develop a wireless sensor solution that could be used
to monitor cracks or defects and corrosion in key structural components
of highway bridges. The five-year research project is funded by a $6.8
million grant that includes $3.4 million from the National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST) and $3.4 million in matching funds
from all participants.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4561/1/1/
Jan.
19, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Sam's Club Provides Clarity on EPC RFID Plans
Sam's Club, the warehouse retail division of
Wal-Mart
Stores, has sent a letter to its suppliers clarifying its plans
to use radio frequency identification tags based on Electronic Product
Code (EPC) standards to track pallets and sellable units.
The letter, dated Jan. 15, 2009, and signed by Sam's Club's CEO, Doug
McMillon, indicates the retailer "remains committed to the vision
of 100 percent EPC RFID labeling on sellable units," and that the
initiative will deliver "game-changing services and value"
to club members, while also delivering value to suppliers. It spells
out Sam's Club's plans for implementing EPC RFID technology, and provides
suppliers with additional time to comply with the tagging requirements
at both the pallet and sellable-unit level.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4551/1/1/
Jan.
19, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Sam's Club Reduces Tagging Fee
Sam's Club, the warehouse retail division of
Wal-Mart
Stores, has informed suppliers, in a letter sent last week, that
it has reduced the fee for each pallet it receives without a radio frequency
identification tag. The retailer will now charge 12 cents, instead of
the previously announced $2.50, to place an RFID tag based on Electronic
Product Code (EPC) standards on any pallet shipped to its distribution
center in DeSoto, Texas.
The reason for the service fee reduction, according to Simon Langford,
Wal-Mart's director for EPC and RFID technologies, is that the retailer
has integrated EPC RFID tagging into its own operations, so the cost
to Sam's Club is minimal. The firm has also announced that it will give
suppliers additional time to comply with the tagging requirements (see
Sam's
Club Provides Clarity on EPC RFID Plans).
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4552/1/1/
Jan.
13, 2009 - RFID
Journal - Washington State Rep Reintroduces RFID Legislation
The Washington State House of Representatives is reviewing a package
of bills this week that would require greater disclosure on the part
of RFID technology end users, in order to alert consumers as to when
the technology is being used. This is the second time such legislation
has made the rounds in that state; similar legislation failed to pass
through Washington's senate last year.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4541/1/1/
Jan.
9, 2009 - RFID
Journal - U.S. Defense Department Picks Four for RFID III
After more than two years of requests and reviews, the
U.S.
Department of Defense (DOD) has chosen four prime contractors to
compete for orders under its RFID III contract, which calls for active
433.92 MHz RFID tags and interrogators compliant with the ISO 18000-7
standard. RFID III is an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ)
contract established by the U.S.
Army on behalf of all U.S. armed services. The contract, administered
by the Army's Product
Manager Joint-Automatic Identification Technology (PM J-AIT) office,
entitles the four companies to compete for purchase orders from any
authorized organization supporting the DOD, the U.S.
Coast Guard, the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), coalition partners and other
foreign military agencies.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4539/1/1/
Jan.
7, 2009 - RFID
Journal - ODIN Tracks Its Own Assets, and Those of Its Clients
When visitors arrive at the new headquarters and laboratory of RFID
services provider and systems integrator
ODIN
Technologies in Ashburn, Va., they are met at the door by an RFID
interrogator deployed by the company to track its own assets, and those
of its clients. The reader is part of an RFID-based security and asset-tracking
installation that Patrick J. Sweeney, ODIN's president and CEO, calls
"eating our own dog food."
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4538/1/1/
Jan. 2,
2009 - RFID
Journal - Records-Management Company Deploys RFID at the Item
Level
A Malaysian records-management company is employing radio frequency
identification to track more than 1 million paper documents and 500,000
cartons.
Sure-Reach,
which stores its clients' records, is using ultrahigh-frequency (UHF)
EPC Gen 2 tags at its warehouse in Shah Alam, near Kuala Lumpur, to
track the documents throughout the facility, and to improve the process
of taking inventory.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4532/1/1/
Jan.
2, 2009 - RFID
Journal - ARINC, Impeva Unveil Real-Time Supply Chain Tracking
Solution
ARINC, a provider
of communications and engineering solutions as well as systems integration
to government, defense and commercial organizations, and Impeva
Labs, a provider of global asset management and optimization systems
and services, are unveiling a new real-time supply chain tracking solution
designed to provide companies with in-transit visibility of their assets
and goods.
The solution, called Asset Assure, leverages a variety of RFID technologies
including mesh networking and wireless sensors that can measure a variety
of conditions including temperature, humidity, movement, shocks and
intrusions (such as a door opening on a container). ARINC says Asset
Assure can be used in a variety of markets to monitor mobile assets,
such as locomotives, railcars, trucks, trailers and sea vessels; intermodal
containers; fixed assets such as pipelines and oil platforms; and high-value
components such as jet engines.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4530/1/1/
Dec.
25, 2008 - RFID
Journal - RFID News Roundup
The following are news announcements made during the past week.
EPCglobal certifies SAP repository as EPCIS compliant
Enterprise applications vendor SAP announced that its SAP
Object Event Repository (OER)—a centralized system of record for
SAP's applications that supports auto-ID-based business processes and
the tracking of serialized items—has been certified and is fully
compliant with EPCglobal's
Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard.
Ambient Systems unveils active RFID system for real-time monitoring;
RF Technologies announces financing plan for customers;
M/A-COM Technology Solutions intros RFID portals that detect tag direction;
Lyngsoe Systems achieves EPCglobal software certification mark;
Wavetrend teams with fleet management service provider;
MysticMD wins research grant for RFID antenna.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4528/1/1/
Dec.
23, 2008 - RFID
Journal - Avis Budget Group Plans to Put Interoperable Toll
Transponders on the Road
Car rental company Avis
Budget Group is collaborating with the Highway
Toll Administration (HTA), an electronic toll-payment service provider,
and RFID technology firm TransCore
to begin the deployment of TransCore's eZGo Anywhere RFID transponders
in 2009. The transponders will enable customers to pass through toll
plazas throughout much of the United States, and be billed at a later
date.
According to TransCore, eZGo Anywhere is the first active RFID tag
capable of working with nearly all tollway RFID readers around the country,
including E-ZPass in the Northeast, Texas' TxTag and Florida's SunPass.
The car rental firm—which already provides local electronic toll
devices for some of its Avis Rent A Car, Budget Rent A Car and Budget
Truck Rental vehicles—intends to have the system in operation
at the end of the second quarter of 2009, says Michael Caron, Avis Budget
Group's VP of product and program development, as long as the various
local toll authorities sign on to the project.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4525/1/1/
Dec.
10, 2008 - RFID
Journal - U.N.'s Universal Postal Union Gears Up for Large
RFID Pilot
Three Middle Eastern countries—Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates—joined together in a three-month pilot earlier this
year to test the suitability of employing radio frequency identification
as a tool for measuring the performance of mail delivery services. The
pilot, led by Qatar's General
Postal Corp. (Q-Post) and also including Saudi
Post and Emirates
Post, leveraged both passive EPC Gen 2 tags and active tags placed
on approximately 3,120 test letters that circulated among the three
nations.
Overseen by the Universal
Postal Union (UPU)— a United Nations agency that serves as
the primary forum for cooperation between postal organizations around
the world—the pilot was designed to determine whether RFID is
a viable technology for measuring quality of service as part of the
agency's development of an affordable global monitoring system (GMS)
covering all UPU members. The GMS will be used to provide precise diagnostic
quality-of-service performance results for inbound mail. The UPU's Quality
of Service Project Group Steering Committee, of which Q-Post is a member,
is spearheading the initiative.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4504/1/1/
Dec. 9,
2008 - RFID
Journal - RiteCare Says RFID Helps Cure Its Warehouse Woes
RiteCare
Pharmacy, a chain of 10 drugstores based in Hyderabad, India, has
turned to an RFID-based inventory-tracking system to help the retailer
improve its inventory visibility and speed its warehousing processes,
in order to improve its overall business operations.
The drug retailer slashed inventory and errors, thanks to an EPC Gen
2 UHF solution provided by S3Edge
that uses Microsoft's
newly release BizTalk RFID Mobile middleware.
(more....)
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/4503/1/1/
Dec.
5, 2008 - RFID
Switchboard - Drug Industry Adopts UHF While Politicians
Debate ePedigree
The health industry calls them ADEs – Adverse Drug Events –
and in hospitals, "preventable ADE's" occur 0.5% per inpatient-day,
according to Billie Whitehurst, Chief Nursing Officer of McKesson, the
drug distribution giant.
The math is not difficult. Multiply all the Hospital Patients in the
U.S. by the number of Days each stayed and divide: HP x D/ 200 = an
incredible number of sick people who got an ADE that was preventable.
This harms 1.5 million Americans a year, costing $3.5 billion.
. . . Preventable ADE deaths are just a small part of that scary number.
Using RFID and barcodes, Concord Hospital in New Hampshire has reduced
administrative errors 79% and virtually eliminated wrong patient, wrong
medications, wrong or omitted dose errors, according to McKesson's Whitehurst.
It also improved charge capture and coordination between pharmacy and
nursing, and provided immediate physician access to medication administration.
. . . In the U.S., McKesson, Cardinal and AmerisourceBergen distribute
virtually all of the drugs that end up in retail and healthcare pharmacies.
They all support and/or promote the use of RFID not just in the pharmaceutical
supply chain, but also within the various warehouses and dispensaries
along the way. At least two of them sell RFID.
. . . The three companies that control the entire pharmaceutical distribution
business in the United States have already voted and UHF RFID is the
unanimous conclusion. Johnson & Johnson, the leading manufacturer
of healthcare products, is now committed to a UHF future, as is mega
pill seller Walmart. Who else do you think gets a vote?
(more....)
http://www.rfidsb.com/rfid-street-your-weekly-inside-scoop-rfid/475-drug-industry-adopts-uhf-while-politicians-debate-epedigree.html
