What is RFID?

October 15th, 2008

Radio-frequency identification chips (often called RFID tags) are passive, inductively powered chips that are applied to numerous applications, from replacing bar codes on supermarket products to discovering lost dogs and cats. It is a tiny, battery-powered electronic device that can be taken around to warn its proprietor that a new RFID tag has been located in his or her locality or that his or her tags are currently being scanned. One of the primary RFID TAG development companies, Alien Technology leads the industry in creating high-quality compliant RFID tags, readers and printers for companies worldwide. Once the RFID tag is activated, the tag decrypt the incoming query and produces an right response by applying the energy of the inbound radio wave to power the chip long enough to respond.

Many other companies are using RFID for a extended kind of applications. Some of these applications include: supply chain management, automatic payment, physical access control, fake prevention, airline baggage management, and smart homes and offices. The next are the more common forms of tags: Label: The tag is a flat, thin, flexible form. Ticket: A flat, thin, flexible tag on paper .Card: A flat, thin tag embedded in tough plastic for long life. Glass bead: A small tag in a cylindrical glass bead, used for applications such as animal tagging (e. Assorted frequencies have peculiar characteristics that make them more useful for several applications.)

RFID TAGS contribute value and accuracy to many applications such as: Compliance labeling in retail distribution centers. High-speed operations in postal and parcel distribution. Manufacturing process control and confirmation, material tracking, Airline luggage identification and routing systems, and Single-pass multiple item identification. RFID technology can be utilized to raise productiveness and tracking in discrete and process manufacturing. For RFID applications such as toll collection and vehicle and container tracking, the tags are used over and over for many years. The most usual applications are payment systems (Mobil Speedpass and toll collection systems, for instance ), access control and asset tracking. Active and semi-passive rfid tags are useful for tracking high-value items that need to be read over long ranges, such as railroad cars on a track, but they cost more than passive tags, which implies they can’t be utilized on low-cost goods.

However, the ease with which RFID tags can be tracked opens up the door to invading people’s privacy. The accelerated adoption of RFID technology has raised worries with many groups involved with privacy such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union . Civil liberties groups are worried about RFID technology being applied to invade people’s privacy; RFID tags enable unethical individuals to spy on people and sneakily collect information on them without their approval or even knowledge.

RFID tag technology, a replacement to bar code technology, identifies tagged items over wireless communication between an electronic reader and tags containing data on microchips. The major disadvantages of a passive rfid tag are: The tag can be read only at very close distances, typically a few feet at most. Passive RFID tags are more acceptable for storage surroundings where there is not a lot of interference, and relatively short distances (typically ranging anywhere from a few inches to a few yards).