Radio Frequency IDentification

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is poised to dramatically impact and improve the way manufacturers, distributors and retailers do business and interact with each other. RFID technology replaces printed barcodes with electronic tags that can discretely identify individual items and can be automatically tracked as they move through distribution channels. By helping companies observe and understand the movement of inventory in real-time, RFID will reduce instances of out-of-stocks and unsaleable product, reduce shrinkage and product loss due to theft and dramatically reduce the cost and manpower affiliated with moving and monitoring inventory. By using so-called radio frequency identification (RFID) chips, manufacturing companies and retailers will be able to track closely their inventories. Every consumer item will have a tag and an electronic product code, or EPC. RFID could also help consumers, for instance when a washing machine will be able to recognize that a bright color piece of clothing has been put in the white wash. RFID chips, which in a few years time are likely to cost a few cents or even less, are thin and small and send essential bits of information about a product to a receiver that can read the signals. The data could include a product description, packaging and expiry dates, color and price. The market opportunity of RFID tags is estimated at $3.1 billion by 2008, according to research group Applied Business Intelligence. Another research group, IDC, estimates that retail demand alone will be $1.3 billion within four years.

RFID, invasion of privacy?

Jan 2004: Since RFID chips are embedded in the products you buy, and they are not turned off when you leave the shop with the merchandise, their actual use will go beyond inventory control; it might reach the much-dreaded sphere of privacy invasion.
Whenever you enter a store, computers in the store can be dedicated to receiving the radio waves of the RFID chips on the e.g. clothes you are wearing. This means that store owners can access, in a matter of seconds, information on products that you have on you (say, you are wearing specifically Armani's Jeans and have a box of Viagra in your pocket :).

ThingMagic's Mercury4 Agile Reader

Vital RFID data can be filtered, managed and even acted upon instantly, in real-time, at a blistering 266 million instructions per second, right at the edge of the network.

EPC: Electronic Product Code

The new EPC standard not only specifies a common format for the codes but creates a uniform system for matching the codes with detailed product information, which can be stored anywhere on the Web. Hardware based on earlier drafts of the EPC standard is already hitting the market. ThingMagic, for one, is making RFID readers able to use multiple frequencies to read tags. You need that flexibility because radio regulations are different around the world, but the supply chains are global.

RFID Applications

2011: The cost per RFID chip will drop from 20 to 50 cents today to a nickel or less. At the same time, companies will modify their back-room supply-chain software to work with the EPC standard, then apply the tags to every pallet, case, and package.

M2M > Machine-to-Machine

The emerging sector of Long Range Wireless Personal Area Networks (LR-WPAN) promises to add another level of complexity and sophistication to the growing Machine-to-Machine (M2M) market. LR-WPAN is a low cost, low power, embedded wireless technology that links devices, systems, and human operators, and can run on common batteries for months or even years.

Internet of things

"In the future, every single object will be connected to the Internet through a wireless address and unique identifier. The Auto-ID center is creating the standards that will shape this new age" - Dirk Heyman, Sun Microsystems


 
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