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  - Sept, 15, 2010 -  

This Week's RFID News Round-Up

 
 

Air Ducts Supercharge RFID Signals? Schoolchildren now Center of RFID Privacy Concerns; Rush Tracking and Precyse Technologies Win Frost & Sullivan Best Practice Awards for RFID Solutions

 
 

 

SCDigest Editorial Staff

SCDigest Says:
The research actually ended its testing at the 30 meter distance. It is quite possible the signals can effectively travel even further than that.

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A summary of top stories in RFID for the past week.

Who Would Have Guessed? Ventilation Ducks at Least Triple RFID Signal Distance, Opening Up New Applications for Building Management

In a just released paper in the proceedings of the IEEE,  researchers at North Carolina State University have summarized a study that showed various ventilation ducts for heating and cooling systems in buildings can at least triple the distance passive UHF RFID tags can be read.

The study found that the typical passive UHF tag read rate range of 5-10 meters can be extended to as much as 30 meters (about 27 yards) because the RFID signals do not disperse or breakdown in the duct work anywhere near as rapidly as they do in free air space.

The research actually ended its testing at the 30 meter distance. It is quite possible the signals can effectively travel even further than that.

The research is probably most useful when considering combining RFID tags that pinpoint a specific location in the building with a variety of sensors, such as temperature, light, etc. By using the ducts, it could be possible to have a centralized reader system connected over fairly long ranges to tags at the end of the ducts, eliminating the need to wire the readers throughout the building. The tag/sensor combo could be placed at the end of the duct, or elsewhere in the room with an antenna at the end of the duct work.

The technology may also have significant applications for health and safety monitoring. “This would work with anything you can create an electronic sensor for,” says Dr. Dan Stancil, co-author of the study paper and professor and head of NC State’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The new insight could open the door to RFID tag smoke detectors, carbon-monoxide monitors, or sensors that can detect chemical, biological or radiological agents.

“Because you can tap into existing infrastructure, I think this [RFID-based] technology is immediately economically viable,” Stancil adds. “Avoiding the labor involved with installing traditional sensors and the related wiring would likely more than compensate for the cost of the RFID tags and readers.”

Not said, but for distances of longer than 30 meters (if that is about the limit), signal repeaters inside the duct work could be used to extend the range.

RFID Privacy Battle to be Waged Over School Children, some Worry

The concern of potential privacy concerns over RFID technology will probably never end - and maybe rightfully so.

Much attention is now being placed on early efforts around the globe to track school children using RFID technology.

Schools in Japan, the UK, and other countries have been conducting trials for RFID tracking of students for several years. Now, such a system is set to be tested in Contra Costa County, California, where preschoolers will be given a jersey to wear with a RFID inside, allowing school staff to know a child's exact position in the building in real-time, and track movement paths of each child as well.

 

That has many privacy advocates worried that such systems will usher in a new wave of RFID-based technology that will give governments and others never yet seen levels of monitoring and control capabilities of US citizens.

Blogger Aaron Saenz is one such concerned observer, a bit unusual in that he seems just fine with using RFID to track inventories in the supply chain.

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RFID tags are "are invaluable when tracking goods, allowing modern corporations like Wal-Mart to manage their inventories quickly and cheaply," he wrote this week.

That said, Saenz notes that "privacy advocates worry that tracking humans with this technology could also lead to major abuses by governments, criminals, and businesses."

He adds that "that the more data we embed in automated systems the more vulnerable we come to unwarranted tracking of that information."

But, he notes that such concerns might not resonate well with the younger generations, many of whom are already publishing their locations in near-real time through with geo-tagging on Facebook, or applications like Twitter and FourSquare.

At SCDigest, we are not at all worried about tracking goods in the supply chain, but think a healthy debate as the technology spreads to other areas is quite appropriate.

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Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Two RFID Solution Providers for Market Leadership

 

The analysts at Frost & Sullivan have recently announced that two RFID-based companies have each separately received one of its Best Practice Awards, which the firm says recognize "exemplary achievements" in different technology and business practice areas.

Rush Tracking Systems was just received the "RFID Integration Services Industry Entrepreneurial Company of the Year" award. Rush Tracking was selected based on an independent assessment and ranking of the peer group companies in the categories of Entrepreneurial Spirit, Best practices and Customer Recommendation. The company's product and services portfolio was assessed on several parameters, including uniqueness, adaptability, creativity, business value, market potential, and risk awareness. Rush Tracking scores well ahead of its competitors on these counts, according to Frost & Sullivan's Raman Monga.

The firm called out Rush Tracking's best practices in the area of RFID business case development with its packaged 'ROI Assessment" methodology and has also developed specialized tool sets and solutions to address common business problems. Rush Tracking's innovative RFID lift truck package (VisibleEdge).

Separately, Precyse Technologies won the Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation of the Year Award for its N3 asset network standard in the Real-Time Location Systems category.

According the Frost & Sullivan, Precyse's N3 solution overcomes many existing technical challenge to building wireless networks for asset tracking using RFID through new technology that enables the use of fewer readers than most existing solutions, reducing total costs of the systems.

 

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