RFID has an ACTIVE Future!
Author: Don Ertel
May 2007
Enterprise wide RFID tagging has continued to slowly grow more prevalent over the last few years driven primarily by the mandates of the Department of Defense, Wal-Mart and other major retailers. These passive EPC-compliant RFID tags have shown great promise in increased efficiencies and visibility within the supply chain. But we’re still years off from the day when you pull a can of soda from the fridge and it updates your shopping list. Wal-Mart announced at the end of 2006 that it would not meet its internal goals for having passive RFID up and running in 12 of its 137 distribution centers. This slower than expected adoption has lead many industry analysts to assert that the technology will never meet the early expectations set for it. But there is an entire other side of the industry that is flourishing thanks to the massive influx of venture capital and publicity of “Big brother” passive RFID.
The market for Active RFID tags, that is RFID tags with a battery attached to them, is really heating up. As more and more users determine that the passive tags they hear so much about are unable to fulfill there needs they begin to look for other solutions. Many of these requirements can be filled by using the more feature rich Active RFID tags. Active RFID tags come in many different capabilities and form factors. Want to track medical equipment within a large hospital?
CDO deployed an active RFID based Real Time locating System for a large hospital group. The system is used to track over 15,000 medical assets across four geographically separate facilities. With this solution we were able to help the hospital make better use of the equipment it owned thus decreasing the amount of equipment it needed to rent or purchase. The system also reduces the amount of time the medical staff spends looking for equipment. How do you monitor assets that need to be stored in large pressurized containers to insure that the pressure, temperature and humidity stay within set limits in a 40+ acre outdoor storage facility in the middle of Arizona? We are installing an Active RFID solution using tags that incorporate remote sensing capabilities. The tags using a relatively new adhoc mesh network capability to report back not just their ID number but also the environmental conditions and internal pressure of the container. The mesh network allows the tags to talk to each other and pass data from tag to tag much like runners in a relay race passing a baton. This capability ends the need for repeaters or multiple RFID interrogators that would have required AC power. As more Micro Electrical Mechanical Sensor (MEMS) technology develops the need for a low cost method of transmitting that sensor data will drive even more RFID sensor enabled applications. Imagine a mesh network of low cost biological and chemical weapons detecting sensors that can be deployed just by placing them around the fence line of a military compound protecting our troops from deadly attacks. Need to know what “really” happens to your assets as they go through an assembly, repair or maintenance line. Implementing an Active RFID enabled Work in Process system will give you true visibility to your process. I’ve had customers swear to me that they know exactly how every part travels through there facility. Then you watch there jaw drop as they review the output from the WIP system and exclaim “Why did that widget go from point A to point C before B?”. Don’t think you need that much capability or think that Active RFID sounds expensive or hard to deploy. We have a Small handheld computer based (Think IPAQ) High Value asset tracking solutions that can be deployed in less than a day, requires no fixed infrastructure and uses reusable active tags that are in the sub $15 price range. We have users that have reduced there total IT inventory times by a factor of ten using this type of solution.
RFID technology is still in its early adoption phase and passive tags will still generate most of the headlines for the foreseeable future. But Active tag based systems are providing our customers real value today. The power of the battery increases the utility of these tags to the point that they are solving problems that passive tags will never begin to address.
