Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is evolving as a major technology enabler for tracking goods and assets around the world. It can help hospitals locate expensive equipment more quickly to improve patient care, pharmaceutical companies to reduce counterfeiting and logistics providers to improve the management of moveable assets. It also promises to enable new efficiencies in the supply chain by tracking goods from the point of manufacture through to the retail point of sale (POS).

As a result of the potential benefits of RFID, many of the world’s major retailers have adopted RFID tagging for pallets and cases shipped into their distribution centres. The consequence of this RFID activity in the retail sector is likely to impact on around 200,000 manufacturers and suppliers globally, and will fuel the market for hardware and software to support RFID.

RFID has many applications outside of the retail supply chain including some surprisingly familiar ones such as car key-fobs, mass transit (such as the London Transport Oyster card), ski resort lift passes and security badges for access control into buildings.

It is often described as a disruptive technology in terms of its potential impact on business processes and systems. However, in many ways it is a simple evolutionary step on from the barcode as a way of gaining increased labour productivity through automation. When used in conjunction with allied technologies it can remotely sense objects to determine their identity, track their position and detect properties such as pressure and temperature.

Industry adoption of RFID

The key driving factor in RFID technology is the adoption of RFID standards, in one of the core areas of retail, until widespread adoption this was a fundamental obstacle. However the ISO and EPC have standardised many of the Radio frequency used these now range from 30kHz to 300GHz. Only frequency bands within this range are available for RFID solutions.

• The following bands now support RFID tags and reading/writing solutions.
• Lower frequency (LF) - 125-134 kHz
  Slow Read. Applications include asset tracking, car immobilisers animal tracking.
• High frequency (HF) - 13.56MHz
  The most commonly used frequency. Applications using smart cards.
• Ultra high frequency (UHF) - 860-960MHz
  Highly likely to be adopted in numerous systems. Giving a good balance between range and tag read speed.
• Microwave frequency - 2.4GHz
  Tags are used for toll collection.

Key advantages of RFID

• Data can be encoded onto tag,
• Large storage capacity,
• Reusable,
• Function in extreme conditions a

RFID Software Solutions

DataScope RFID Solutions range from simple data collection systems, to enterprise wide RFID solutions. DataScope help you identify your requirements, design and construct a solution to stream data between RFID devices. In addition we can integrate with an existing database server. DataScope have experience in all areas of project management and integration.

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