Future Now
The IFTF Blog
RFID in 2005: Hardware session
Yesterday I attended the Commerce Department's RFID in 2005 conference, at which I gave a talk on the futures of RFID. Eventually audio recordings of the panels are supposed to be put up online, but I thought it would be useful to post my notes on each of the sessions. As with all notes, they reflect my interpretation of what each speaker said, and are more or less accurate, depending on how warm the room was, how awake I was, etc.
Sue Hutchinson:
RFID is a key technology for the expansion of the global supply chain; but it can also be used to provide benefits to consumers (e.g., anti-counterfeiting, better visibility of food history).
Bill Allen (TI-RFID Systems)
TI-RFID business unit established 15 years ago; mainly passive tags, some readers and antennas.
Current milestones:
- 120 million car anti-theft tags
- 30 million in livestock tracking
- 20 million library books
- 8 million Speedpass
- 4 million trays tracked by Marks and Spencer
Other uses:
- Warehouse, supply chain, logistics
- Chip wafer manufacturing (tag trays to insure work processes are performed)
- Product authentication
- Major marathons
- Test tube tracking
- Toll and parking lot access
- Event access
- Tree growth patterns, salmon migration
- Tracking critical files
Collaboration between tech companies, industry, government, consumer groups is essential; bit "we vote with our dollars... on what technologies we feel comfortable with."
Q: What's changed to make RFID so prominent?
The Wal-Mart (and then DOD, Tesco, Metro, etc.) mandate; convergence of technology and capability; standardization; falling cost.
Fraser Jennings (Savi Technology)
Supply chain visibility results from multiple technologies working together: item, packages, transport unit (case), unit load (pallet), container, movement vehicle will incorporate manual systems, pass, active, satellite technology. Ultimate aim is "total end-to-end nested visibility," made possible by middleware.
Scott Silverman (Applied Digital)
Leader in implantable RFID: VeriChip was cleared in 10/2004 for human use, 15-year history of product use in animals (first visible tags used in cows and pigs, then external RFID tag, then implantable microchips used for pets, salmon (moving through dams), livestock.
Human use in medical (VeriChip wants to be the gateway to universal medical databases), security, financial.
Q: Most promising future uses in medical arena?
Integration of VeriChip with other medical devices, emergency room.
Jeff Fischer (Reva Systems)
Infrastructure for Scaling RFID Deployments. The sense that the technology is the easy part, and the policy is hard; but in fact, it's not. Getting to full-scale deployment requires scaling from pilots (trillions of tags moving around will create very big challenges); good air protocol (Gen 2 is good, but creates challenges for location resolution, password management, coordination of settings, tools); a way to control it; coordination across the readers.
Q: Future radio issues?
From a radio spectrum and RF standpoint, RFID will be bigger than cell phones. Japan and China are unknowns.
Gaylen Morris (MET Labs)
Long history of testing technologies, done lots with EPCglobal to standardize RFID; working on determining end-user requirements, performance issues, hardware conformance, impact of regulatory requirements on testing and certification, simulations.
Q: What's been interesting in the last year?
In Gen 1, more interoperability than the current state of the technical specs would suggest. In Gen 2, air protocol signals that conformed to standards.
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