RFID has come a long way since Charles Walton’s 1983 U.S. patent—the first to be associated with the acronym. His invention, designed to facilitate quick and accurate identification of remotely located objects, used an identifier for generating and transmitting a signal in the radio frequency range, allowing data communication without physical connection.
Today, Doug Seitz, manager of the RFID/thermal portfolio for Boulder, Colorado-based InfoPrint Solutions (IPS), observed the list of industries and items incorporating RFID is steadily expanding. From tracking surgical sponges in the operating room, fish in public aquariums and kids at amusement parks, to opening car doors, managing inventory and serving toll road applications, RFID usage is on the rise. “One measure of technolog[ical] success is the diversity of interesting ways the technology is absorbed into daily life without fanfare,” he said.
Seitz referred to RFID-enabled car key fobs as examples of the technology’s rate of diffusion and pervasiveness of implementation, while its growing use in RTLS (Real Time Location Systems) for monitoring people in hazardous environments could actually save lives. “But, I have to admit, the aquarium that tags fish and flashes their identity on a screen as they swim by the glass certainly caught me by surprise,” he added.
Certainly, supply chain applications became visible very quickly with mandates from Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense. “But, technologies may take years to gain the hardened stability to mature from pilot status to robust infrastructure,” Seitz continued. “They grow organically from tiny seedlings to forests.”
Risk, Effort, Adoption
Undoubtedly, there are some issues associated with RFID that have the marketplace weighing the perceived value of utilizing the technology now, versus waiting until the issues have been addressed. RFID tag costs remain relatively expensive compared to a bar-coded tag, for instance, and Seitz acknowledged that metal containers and those filled with liquid can pose challenges for UHF RFID reader frequencies.
In addition, some ne’re-do-wells are discovering ways to disable the technology. “If a store used only RFID scanners for reading cart contents and scanned an entire cart in a single pass, a consumer with evil intent could disable small, expensive items that would not be picked up by the readers,” Seitz explained. “In some cases, it is as simple as placing your hand over the tag. This is a challenge to overcome before we ... have ‘instant checkout’ in stores, instead of serializing purchases on the scanner belt.”
He went on to say that inlays are still reasonably fragile and do not submit well to extensive bending and twisting, suggesting an early stage of deployment. “We’re already seeing how fibers are being used to weave RFID information into objects that can be flexible,” observed Seitz. “EPC Gen2 standards improved overall readability and standards. [And] we’re seeing [enhancements] in Near Field UHF improving the read rates around metals and liquids.” For the time being, he said, the coexistence of bar codes and RFID seems to offer the marketplace all the benefits of both technologies. “Adoption increases as effort and risk decrease,” stressed Seitz.
It is effort—real or imagined—which Seitz believes is the chief barrier holding RFID back from more rapid supply chain use. Returning to the RFID-enabled car key fob, for example, he emphasized that consumers do not have to receive extensive training or read large technical manuals prior to use, nor is any considerable customization required. “Basically, the consumer effort [is] nil and the benefits [are] significant,” commented Seitz. “Hence, rapid deployment and rapidly lowered costs.”
However, instituting a reader network is less cut-and-dried than keyless car entry. “Managing interference, avoid[ing] reader field overlap, implementing solutions for metal[s] and liquids, engineering the environment and then calculating the costs [are factors which] slow deployment,” offered Seitz. “Skills in this area are still limited, further [hindering] the ability of a company to ‘just try it out’.”
Transforming data effectively between media, cautioned Seitz, requires a variety of hardware, transformational and process software, robust spool management to ensure delivery and failover, and management capability to monitor and take rapid action on issues. “IPS’s global support and 24/7 maintenance, consulting and implementation services, [as well as] the innovations in software that we have made [during the past] 20 years, position us well to assist customers [in] understand[ing] and optimiz[ing] their business processes,” offered Seitz.
A Chip off the old RFID Block
The impact of effort and risk on RFID adoption within the supply chain was also noted by Bob Hakman, president of Diversified Labeling Solutions, Itasca, Ill.
“In the past year, Wal-Mart [and the] Department[s] of Defense and Homeland Security have all relinquished their mandates for the use of chips from their suppliers,” he said.
Hakman cited the cost of the chips and technology issues as chief reasons for the slow-down or delay in RFID implementaion in the mainstream marketplace. And, the situation is not expected to change until costs are reduced and some technical issues are resolved.
Interestingly, Diversified Labeling Solutions has embraced an emerging technology which could help turn the tide. The company obtained a license last year for the production of labels, tags and other products featuring CRIS (Chipless Remote Identification System) analog technology. Diversified Labeling Solutions is one of approximately 15 different licensees of the technology for North America, and thus far, the technology has only been used for covert, anticounterfeiting measures, such as authenticating financial and travel documents. However, Hakman and his team are now working on developing the noncovert readers and software needed for long-range scanning capabilities.
Because CRIS is analog, there are no longer issues from viruses and hackers rewriting information on chips. “[CRIS also] eliminates having dead chips after they are put on the product,” reported Hakman.
Of course, all technologies run the risk of misreads due to conditions, ranges of read and various substrates labels and tags are applied to, explained Hakman. “Chip reads can be blocked or fail to read if they are too close to each other. The chips themselves are destroyed by metals, liquids, static electricity, radiation and microwaves,” he continued. “But, chipless labels are only affected by metal covering the label on both sides.
“Our products are much less expensive than RFID chips since we only use the antenna; the cost savings vary depending upon [the] size of the label or tag and the type of media the resonators are embedded into.”
Hakman said the Nano Resonant antennas reflect impinging RF energy. Less than two microns thick, the antennas can be randomly embedded into paper and plastics to prevent counterfeiting. “The resonators are activated by the energy from very high frequency radar pulses which receive the reflected energy from the resonators and, based on direction and distance, create a unique binary number for the label or tag,” he noted.
The technology provides a random binary number series, which then uploads to a system so the information can be transmitted to a central database location for processing. The read range will increase, Hakman continued, as software and hardware with increased range is developed. “When bar code readers started [25 years ago], the read range was less than 1⁄8",” he noted.
Like Seitz, Hakman sees the continued use of bar codes, as well as RFID and chipless technology, in combination with bar codes depending upon applications. However, Seitz stated, “I believe that innovation and engineering will enable the ‘ ... RFID-kit-in-a-box’ solution that will eliminate the effort—or significantly reduce it—so small customers, or even large customers, can give RFID a whirl with definitively minimal effort.”
- Companies:
- Diversified Labeling Solutions