RFID devices in Humans

RFID devices utilize wireless technology to transmit data via signals in the radio frequency range. Data is stored on an electromagnetic chip that is attached to an antenna, and is packaged in a manner that can be planted on the surface of materials, animals and humans. These devices are of two types: Active and Passive. Passive devices have no internal power supply, limited range and a limited storage space that cannot be modified. Active devices are more versatile with internal power, higher range and more data storage space.

Active devices pose a high risk to the confidentiality and privacy of the humans. Considering this, the US Food and Drug Association (FDA) has only approved the passive chips for human implantation. These devices are implanted into patients with chronic diseases such as coronary artery disease, chronic pulmonary disease, diabetes mellitus, stroke and seizure disorder or are implanted into patients with medical devices such as pacemakers, stents or joint replacements. The device is of the size of a rice grain and can be implanted using a hypodermic-type needle.

DATABASE MANAGEMENT: RFID tags expedite access to medical history of patients. The data on the chip can be read by an RFID reader installed in the hospital and the medical record database can facilitate access to patient records, medication lists and diagnostic tests. The information on these chips should be properly integrated with the different departments in the hospital such as pharmacy and laboratory so as to be effective. With the evolution of newer versions and designs of chips in the market, there are compatibility issues with the interrogation devices and older database management systems.

PHYSICAL RISK TO PATIENTS:  Although these devices are removable, once implanted they migrate under the skin and are difficult to extract. A new technology has been developed that makes the tissues to surround and encase the device that makes it easier to locate these. But there have been instances where these devices cause electromagnetic interference with electrosurgical devices and defibrillators. These may also affect the efficacy of some drugs.

PATIENT PRIVACY AND SECURITY:  Physicians must assure that there is no divulgence of patient medical information which may lead to embarrassment, social discrimination, loss of health care coverage or other detrimental consequences. Keeping this in mind, the FDA requires the transponders to have special codes for individual identification of patients. The medical community should also advocate the adoption of other security tools such as computer encryption or digital signatures.

OTHER ISSUES: RFID can also be used in the tracking and surveillance of individuals who pose a threat to others.  Critics also say that this is an infringement upon patients’ liberties and should involve his informed consent. But every technology has its pros and cons and the onus is on the physician community to promote the use of this technology as a less intrusive alternative.

The US government has made strict laws that prohibit anyone from forcing anyone to get an RFID implant. The normal cost of a RFID chip is 50 cents nowadays and the dimensions are 12 mm*2.2 mm.

Baggage Handling By Airlines

One of the major problem faced by the airlines is how to handle the baggage of the fliers ? lost baggage, delayed baggage arrival and other baggage related issues are quite mundane with airlines.Airlines try to compete with each other in terms of better in flight services, pretty air hostesses, timely arrival and departures but baggage handling is one area which is often neglected.
It is estimated that annually $760 millions are spend by the airlines on this problem of lost or misplaced baggages on addition to it is the cost related to increased safety measures due to increased instances of terror threats.Unaccompanied baggage is not allowed to be loaded in passenger flights and reconciliation of tags with the passengers who have already boarded the flight is a cumbersome process.

Airline baggages is fixed with large stick -on bar code tag at the time of luggage check in.The luggage then move on various conveyors which have bar code readers mounted on them to scan each baggage that come in its effective range. The problem with this system are that bar-code reader require clear lie of sight , in case the tag is misaligned, it cannot be read. labels are often unreadable due bunching of baggages owing to improper loading by the staff deployed.Tags may be worn out or dirty enough to make it impossible for bar code reader to read them.
The baggage is then Routed to correct bay where a baggage carrying trucks ensure pickup and delivery to the right aircraft. As the baggage is loaded in the hold of the aircraft they are once again scanned by the bar code scanner to scan each piece of baggage and information is relayed to central computer that which bags have made it to aircrafts hold.
During this time passenger begin boarding the aircraft,their boarding passes are swiped and this data is fed automatically into the computer system. Now this data is available as passenger manifest, which tells the airline staff which of the checked in passenger actually boarded the aircraft.This is tallied with passengers baggage and one to many relationship is established between passenger and pieces of baggage.All this process ensure that unaccompanied baggage should not be travelling in the aircraft.

 In case it is found that unaccompanied bag is being loaded into the hold, that bag is unloaded from the hold which is quite complicated as the baggage attended has to enter the hold and search for that bag amongst the clutter of bags with only hand held bar code scanner at his disposal.It also poses other problem such as whether this bag was supposed to be loaded in some other aircraft but due to improper reading was loaded in tis aircraft.This entails manual intervention on part of airline and coordinating with various people to reunite the passenger with his bag.In case of transit passenger the situation worsens as bags and passenger moves from one terminal to the next.

Instead of ordinary bar code stick-on labels , RFID inlay stick-on labels can be used.These have printed portions as well as RFID tag inlay which be either a read only or write once read many type.These tags can be read by RFID readers mounted at various locations on conveyor belts.

The advantages of such system are :

• Many bags can be read at a time unlike bar code scanners. This speeds up baggage handling process.
• RFID readers can read tags even if they are misaligned or dirty.
• Retrieving bag from hold is easy as hand held reader need not to be in line of sight and it can read multiple bag tags simultaneously.

This technology is presently being used in major airports of the world which have lot of traffic due to transit passengers for example Hong Kong airport.

Emirates Airline Employee with RFID Tag on Bag 

Future Scenario:

• IATA may make it compulsory for all airlines as well airports to install RFID reader systems and tags.
• Government and security agencies would also promote the initiative for enhance security of the airports and flights.
• Newer or airports undergoing up gradation to newer control and automation system may provide facilities for both bar code reader as well RFID for baggage handling to ensure maximum passenger friendly environment. 

The RFID Tag and Reader

To give all of you a hint into how does RFID works. We won’t be going into too many details of how these things make EM waves and how the reader reads or actuates a passive reader. This is just to give you a know how of what is a RFID tag and Reader.

An RFID tag comprises a microchip mounted on a flexible PET substrate with an attached antenna. This assembly is then sandwiched between a label and its adhesive backing. The RFID tag can become the most widely used application of nanotechnology, as one appreciate the fact that the chip used in these tags are no bigger than grain of sand of the order .3mm² . Although the chips are small what gives these tags their size, is the antenna. The antenna needs to pick up and amplify a signal. As we will eventually be discussing in further posts the uses of RFID tags, one basic fact can be appreciated at this moment is, these tags are meant to facilitate the process of communication between various objects, so these tags are required to send signal strong enough to allow them to be read at distance 3 meters and beyond through materials like boxes, metals, human intervention. After the antenna is attached and the assembly is packaged in a protective laminate, the resulting RFID tag becomes finger size or larger.

RFID tags can be of two types

1.  An active RFID tag
2.  An inactive RFID tag

Active RFID tag broadcasts under their own power. An on board battery powers the microchip circuitry and the transmitter. Active tags are capable of receiving and transmitting signals the distance of a football field. They are suited for applications where they can be permanently mounted. Passive tags have no battery, instead they draw power from the reader. The electromagnetic waves transmitted from the reader induce a current in the tag’s antenna. This energy is used to talk-back to the reader. This is similar to the radar function.

Passive tags are cheaper and suit the function of inventory control and supply chain management, as they tread back information whenever needed, for the rest of time we need them to be just passive.

TAG TYPE	ADVANTAGES	DISADVANTAGES	APPLICATION
ACTIVE	Greater read range, memory capacity, continuous signal	Batteries required	Used with high value asset tracking
SEMI PASSIVE	Greater read range, longer battery life	Battery wear and expense	Reusable containers and asset tracking
PASSIVE READ/WRITE	Longer life, multiple form factors, erasable and programmable	Shorter range than active	Case and pallet applications.
PASSIVE WORM	Suited for item identification, controllable at the packaging source	Limited to a few re-writes, replacing existing data with new data	Case and pallet application
PASSIVE READ ONLY	Simplest approach	Identification only, no tracking updates. Difficult to generate on demand and integrate data	Case and pallet application

THE RFID READERS.

A reader uses an antenna to send signal encoded in either of the form.

i)                    Amplitude modulated waveform

ii)                  Pulse modulated waveform

Readers are available as hand held devices, mobile mounted, fixed read only, and combination reader/encoder. Task of a reader is to communicate with the tag and thus acquire and maintain this information for the task intended, now because many tags may be in presence of a reader, they must be able to receive and manage many replies at once. A reader can tell some tags to wake up and some to sleep, just to manage the communication. 

The above mentioned tags and readers describe the majority chunk of tags and readers that are used in RFID labeling. there are many other variations and differences in the functionality and usage of these tags and readers that come into picture as the usage becomes varied and customized.

Issues with RFID - 3

Implementation Issue

Security/Privacy Issues

Many people are weary of RFID technology as they believe it is an attempt at invading the privacy of every individual on the Earth.

This new technology has raised privacy concerns by many. In examining the privacy impact of RFID tags, it is helpful to review privacy rights origins and history in our society. First, though, in order to address and analyze threats to personal privacy it is desirable to categorize personal privacy. DeGeorge (2003) suggests six different classes of personal privacy which can be categorized as privacy classes.

•          Space - physical space such as home, desk, locker etc.
•          Body/mental - free speech, no self-incrimination
•          Personal information - information about yourself
•          Communication privacy - interchange between individuals such as phone or email
•          Personal privacy - right to be left alone, freedom to do what we want on our own time
•          Cyber privacy - free speech in the electronic world

There are significant privacy issues involved in the use of RFID tags:

•          Tags are hidden and unknown to shoppers and purchasers.
•          Tags provide an identification of every item purchased, thus allowing a universal product registration system.
•          Tags allow the potential for aggregation of massive amounts of personal data based on purchases and ownership, making personal profiling possible.
•          Embedded tags (such as in clothing or currency) can be read by active readers and can allow tracking of individuals.

One fear is that someone in the manufacturing or sales chain will use information gleaned from RFID systems to learn information about or track a consumer contrary to his or her interests and desires. While linking the serial number on an RFID tag back to the purchaser can have many substantial benefits, misuse of that same linkage may constitute a privacy invasion.

Questions about direct monitoring parallel longstanding debates about what retailers and marketers may do with consumer information they gather through transactions. This is not a new issue, but an extension of an old one.

The second way RFID systems may be used to compromise privacy is when an outsider to an RFID network uses the existence of RFID tags to read and collect personally identifiable information contrary to the interests of those monitored. Someone may scan an RFID tag and use further reading of the tag elsewhere as a proxy for the presence of the same individual in the second location. Collecting that information, or subsequently using it in various ways, may compromise privacy and threaten other interests.

The RFID privacy threats may be summarized under:

•       System security

o   Outside attacker gains access to database

o   Inside attacker with RFID hardware

•          Malicious peers

o   Other users query to track me

o   User data could be mined

o   Peers collude to learn even more

•          Institutional surveillance

o   System owner tracks users

o   Other institutions can gain access

o   User is unaware of what is being stored and for how long

Below is shown a privacy v/s utility graph:

Future areas of study which may lead to improvement in this area are:

•          Add a set of administrator-defined system-wide database queries
•          Study explicit user privacy controls
•          Investigate provable database privacy techniques
•          Creation of an economic model for “pricing” queries based on privacy
•          Study privacy models in-situ with real applications and users

Issues with RFID - 2

Proving the ROI

As with any other technological investment the RFID investment has high risks. The key driver to mass adoption is proven return on investment, which will require substantial end-user testing to quantify payback. 

On paper the value proposition of RFID is significant- AMR Research, Inc. was an independent research firm has released studies suggesting that the attributes of RFID, compared with other tracking technologies, will enable significant supply-chain advantages, including greater revenue from fewer stock-outs, lower labor costs through increased automation and improving inventory management from better visibility.

The significant supply chain adoption of RFID in recent years goes on to prove the utility of RFID in this area. The great excitement around the data sharing model of Wal-mart is not phony. The model has proved to be strategically beneficial to suppliers of Wal-mart.

In the eyes of RFID enthusiasts the question of RFID proving its ROI does not arise. As RFID Journal editor Mark Roberti says in his recent article the benefits provided by RFID far over-power the need to calculate ROI.

During the era of internet boom many investments were made without a slightest of doubt or ROI analysis. When the dot.com bubble burst millions were lost in thin air. This has created a sense of “once bitten twice shy” attitude. However, today some of the largest fortune 500 companies are internet based.

RFID technology, on the similar lines cannot be ignored. The value that RFID promises to provide is simply not understood by most organizations today. To accept the utility of RFID in businesses, organizations need to realize that there are areas where they are still underperforming and may improve their efficiency by using RFID technology.

Rewe group, a European retail and food group, used to have to replace 10 percent of its roll cages each year because the company had no cost-effective way to track them. Today, Rewe has deployed an RFID system  that can track roll cages in real time as they pass through dock doors, and it hopes to install the system eventually in 29 distribution centers, achieving real-time visibility into the cages' locations at all times. (See Rewe Deploying Long-Range Real-Time Location RFID System)

The point is RFID lets the organization manage what has to date, not been manageable—people, assets, tools, equipment, containers, inventory, vehicles, files and more. If businesses deploy it as an infrastructure technology, it will deliver myriad benefits over time, and then calculating an ROI on a specific application becomes less important. 

Anti-Theft Systems

It was not long ago that anti theft systems placed in the shopping malls and large stores were CCTV cameras and store personnels keeping an eye on shoppers.These provisions were not sufficient to stop shoplifting incidents.In case of stores selling expensive items such as diamonds, jewellery's etc  such incidents could result in large losses.

Initially RFID tags and systems were introduced in the shops selling expensive items where the return on investment is justified but as price of such system declined over the time on the other hand cost of manpower is increased, these system became common in supermarkets and shopping malls. Management relies on these system heavily to stop the cases of theft. CCTV cameras are used only as a backup device.These devices can alert security personnel as soon as theft takes place unlike CCTV in which sometimes it takes hours of labor to go through video footages to identify the thief.

CCTV View of a Store

Stores place RFID Anti-theft tag on merchandise for their protection.These tags are reusable which ensure that once the item is sold tag can be used for other items.These tags are attached by the mean of plastic string or band with high tensile strength to ensure that they cant be broken easily. If someone  tries to walk out of store with the merchandise , RFID door antennae placed near the exit will detect the presence of tag and sound the alarm. However in case of genuine shopper, near the checkout counter tag will be removed by the store personnel by cutting the string and no alarm will be raise when person walks out with the item. several times disposable tags is used by the stores so they are subjected to high electromagnetic radiation by the store personnel to destroy the tag . In this case as the person walks out of the store tag though physically present would not cause the raising of alarm.

RFID Door Antenna

RFID Tag Placed on Items

Future Scenario:


It is believed that almost all stores will implement this anti theft technology as their cost will keep on falling owing to large demand , large supply and modified cost effective technology.The large use of the same is also due to disliking of crude methods like frisking by the genuine shoppers. there is always a fear of harming the relationship with the customers.by such measures of security.Even retailers will start using RFID tags for the purpose of tracking inventory, shelf replenishment and collecting information about the buyer behavior.However simple anti theft tags would not cater to all these operations so more technically advanced tags will be needed integrating all the operations.

Issues with RFID - 1

The RFID technology has been touted as one of the most promising future technologies which will be as omnipresent in the real world as there are ‘Google’ and ‘Facebook’ on the web today. In spite of such projections there are many complications in the actual implementation of the technology, therefore stifling investments.

Majority of investments are justified by the model of Return on Investment and this, is exactly where the RFID technology fails.

In this series of articles we shall discuss various aspect involved in implementation of RFID and investment in RFID.

Price-Utility Ratio :

The cheapest RFID tags cost around 15 US cents on an average*. But the utility of these is minimal.

For an RFID tag with sophisticated sensors the cost may be as high as 100 US $. They have great utility but are impossible to produce in high volumes.

This is where the buyers of the tags discard the value proposition of RFID tags. The existing technology of bar-codes in retail is as cheap as zero US cents.

Recently two statements have been published suggesting that because the price of a barcode is so low, it is unlikely that RFID would be a viable replacement

In the one case the statement was:

"I see RFID tags replacing bar codes in [more expensive] garments, for instance. But I don't see it happening in the supermarket. People have talked about replacing U.P.C. code with RFID, but I don't think it will ever happen:  Because nothing's cheaper than zero. And it literally costs nothing to put a U.P.C. code on a package. You just integrate a bar code into your artwork and print it; it doesn't cost anything. And they're never going to bring an RFID tag down to a hundredth of a cent, or even less. Anything that it costs is going to cost more than zero."    -Trolley Scan (Pty) Ltd

While the other read:

"It’s highly unlikely that the technology will ultimately replace bar code- even with the inevitable reduction in raw material costs coupled with the economies of scale, the integrated circuit in the RF tag will never be as cheap as a barcode label."                - Trolley Scan (Pty) Ltd

Both of these commentaries seem to be based on the premise that because a barcode label is integrated into the display packaging of the product, it is very cheap. Surely the real issue is what are the productivity benefits by using an RFID tag, versus a barcode, versus a simple numeric tag?

Bar-codes have made their presence felt in society almost solely around potential productivity benefits they offer. However barcodes do not cost only the cost of the ink on the packaging. The user needs to buy sophisticated scanning equipment, information systems, and communication systems and manage databases just to be part of the user group for benefiting from machine readable labels.

On the other hand, RFID benefit not just the retailer, but all parties from the manufacturer, distributor, logistics operator, retailer and the user.  RFID is going to win its major position in these applications through real productivity enhancements and benefits for the users, which will completely outweigh that it might cost more than the price of the ink on the barcode label. The rollout of RFID as a viable replacement however is not without its hurdles, particularly the size of the project that will require many players involvement and initially only allow leading/forward-looking retailers to be involved.

FuelDispensing Using RFID

Many industries as well as transport companies own large fleet of trucks for transporting the raw materials and finished product periodically from production units or ware houses to distribution or storage points.Hence in the process frequent refueling of the trucks at fuel station are required.Some of these companies have installed fuel stations in their own yards to provide easier access to the fuel to their fleet of trucks.

Driver takes the truck to the fueling station and authorization is based on personal identification of the driver , it creates the scope of misuse as the identification is based on personal relationship.It is difficult to track which truck goes to which fueling station and whether refueling was necessary at that moment.there is sufficient time lag between the event of occurrence of such misuse and its knowledge to management.

Manual Gasoline Dispenser

RFID enabled fuel dispensing unit can be installed at the fuel filling stations.Similarly RFID tags can be fitted in trucks.As the truck approaches the filling station unit RFID reader can recognize the authenticity of truck and allow or deny the fueling.Once the fueling is over the pump shuts and information about the truck such as (truck number, type, drivers id)  and fuel dispensing information such as(amount filled, date, time) is relayed immediately to concerned offices of both trucking as well fuel dispensing company which helps in keeping the track of truck being filled.

RFID Enabled Fuel Dispenser

Advantages of using this RFID technique in fuel dispensing are :

• Fuel station can be unmanned as identification is  based on RFID tags and not personally.
• Faster, secure authorization at the filling stations.
• Real time track of trucks and fuel filling informations helps in optimizing operations.
• Billing errors can be minimized as it enables daily reporting between the trucking and fuel supplying company.

Future Scenarios:

 This application can be extended to automated filling and dispatching of chemicals in the chemical tankers by the chemical manufacturing companies.chemical manufacturing plants can then carry on their loading and dispatching operations with minimal manpower and can ensure right quantity of chemical is filled and entire information with time is recorded in batch controller and transmitted to central control system.

Applications in Event Management

Football World Cup

Be it Football world cup, rock show , college Fest or any other large scale event it is always challenging to manage the same.The challenge faced by the organizers is to mange the the crowd of people out of which many are fanatics and emotionally attached to the event. Many of the same try entering the event without the genuine ticket and to restrict such activities is a tough task faced by the organizers.It has also been noticed due to the large demand which causes shortage of ticket many people are being fooled by the counterfeiters who sold them fraudulent tickets.

considering the present scenario, the problem we are facing is that normal printed tickets are to be manually checked. This requires large number of authorized people at the entrance gates who will check the tickets of each and every person which could be time consuming.Besides this these tickets can be easily counterfeited and it is often seen that organizers themselves can't distinguish between real and fake tickets thus allowing the entry at the same seat to two different persons resulting in a brawl inside the event.Bar coded tickets were introduced for automated gate keeping resulting in faster process of ticket checking but still the bar-codes can be counterfeited with ease.

Printed tickets with RFID inlay can be the solution of this problem. This tickets looks similar to a printed one but it has a passive RFID inlay within it. This inlay is a read only tag identified by the reader even from a distance hence it is possible to implement both automated doors with reader or security guards with hand held readers to facilitate the process of ticket checking.

RFID Ticket Reader Doors

The advantages this RFID inlay tickets have are  :

•  No possibility of counterfeiting as it impossible to guess the original serial number and to make or source RFID inlay matching the original one.
• Faster scanning of RFID tags on tickets at access gates enables in smooth crowd management

RFID Ticket at Beijing Olympics

Future Scenarios:

Beijing Olympics had successfully implemented RFID tickets which has paved the way to use these tickets to such events in which large crowds are expected.These tickets could even be extended to local transport system such as metro trains which handles large crowd on daily basis.

  

Animal Identification

Looking back into the history; people are always possessive about their cattle or animals. Several methods had been adopted to distinguish animals of one owner from another like iron branding in which symbol or name of the ranch is branded on the skin of animal to identify the ranch to which it belong. Red hot iron is used for branding the animals hide which was quite painful.

The need for the labeling of animals is because of the fact that most of the time animals graze in the common grazing area and it avoids dispute arising from the right of ownership of the animals. Disadvantages of the above method were that identification has to be done manually and it was quite painful for animals

Branding of animals
With the advancements of time branding was replaced by plastic or metal tags tied to the animals. However this was usually done for the cattle and identification has to be still done manually. Another problem faced was the cases of lost pets identification which could only be done by some crude methods like birth marks which are not very reliable to ensure the fool proof identification.

Plastic Tags

As the RFID came into the picture; the old plastic tags are being replaced by RFID tags, they are mounted in the same old fashion but it has many more advantages. Even Injectable RFID tags are now available which can be injected through special syringe to remain under the skin of animal. There is no outer mark for other person to know the location of the tag so the chances of tampering of the tags are minimal. The chip inside the tag is read only so data once entered cannot be modified. These tags are being successfully used for pets today; these tags have a life span of 25 years which is generally more than the life span of pet. They can be placed on any pet irrespective of its size. As the tag is inserted inside the skin the tags can’t get dirty or lost. These tags can be scanned by the remote reader. The number of RFID tag is unique to avoid any dispute arising from the duplication.

The scanning of the animal can be done through the remote RFID scanner or the portable one. The RFID reader is connected to the remote database which contains the unique RFID number, Animals date of birth, medical history, last vaccination date and other identification marks.

                                                    

Injectible RFID Tags

Some of the advantages of using the RFID system are:

• ·        Not painful to animal
  ·        Tags not externally visible
  ·        Keeps record of vaccination, medical history, health checkups etc.
  ·        No chance of duplication due to unique number
  ·        Automated identification
  ·        Provides audit trail traceability for food safety in case of cattle
  
  
  Future scenarios:
  
  
  ·        These systems can be used on endangered species which would enable environmental agencies to monitor the number of species. Although radio tagging is being used in some places but majority of them are using crude methods like animal dropping etc for the animal census. This could also prevent poaching as animals hunted would be easily known.
  ·        It is possible that government by law made it mandate to tag all the animals. Pet tagging would be enable better health record of them while livestock tagging enable government to have better monitoring of their food supply chain.
  ·        International bodies may mandate all food produced from farm animals may require traceability of the animals from which food was made. Thus record from animals can give clues to prevent unknown diseases from being spreading into humans.
  ·        Keeping the medical track of animals may prevent the spreading of diseases like swine flu by early desolation of the infected animal.

The Basics of RFID Technology

All the wireless communication is based on a basic principle: By attaching an antenna of the appropriate size to an electrical circuit, the electromagnetic waves can be broadcast efficiently and received by a receiver some distance away. We focus on the characteristics of radio waves over a relatively short distance.

The properties of radio waves are frequency dependent. At low frequencies, radio waves pass through obstacles well, but the power falls off sharply with distance from source. Radio waves are also subject to interference from a variety of sources, from sun spots to other electrical equipment. Due to these reasons there are stringent regulations from government. At this moment if RFID sounds alien to you consider this RFID works on the same principle and similar bandwidth as used by cordless phones, garage door openers, wireless hi-fi speakers, security gates.

ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM

CLASSIFICATION OF RFID TECHNOLOGIES
LOW-FREQUENCY	LOWFID	125–134.2 KHZ AND 140–148.5 KHZ
HIGH-FREQUENCY	HIGHFID	13.56 MHZ
ULTRA-HIGH-FREQUENCY	ULTRA-HIGHFID OR UHFID	868–928 MHZ

Low FID tags and High FID tags can be used globally without a license. Ultra-High FID tags cannot be used globally as there is no single global standard. In North America, UHF can be used unlicensed for 902–928& MHz (±13 MHz from the 915 MHz center frequency), but restrictions exist for transmission power. In Europe, RFID and other low-power radio applications are regulated by ETSI recommendations EN 300 220 and EN 302 208, and ERO recommendation 70 03, allowing RFID operation with somewhat complex band restrictions from 865–868 MHz, The North American UHF standard is not accepted in France as it interferes with its military bands. For China and Japan, there is no regulation for the use of UHF. Each application for UHF in these countries needs a site license, which needs to be applied for at the local authorities, and can be revoked. For Australia and New Zealand, 918–926 MHz are unlicensed, but restrictions exist for transmission power.

RFID and its business impact

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is an exciting technology that has revolutionized many facets of businesses around the world. RFID as a technology is not something new, use of radio-frequency for identification started during the time of World War II. The use of RFID in its current form is a result of advancements in technology as well as exploration of possible uses of RFID in business.

The scope of this project would be to evaluate the impact of the technology on businesses as well as the impact of businesses on development of the technology.

The first major breakthrough in terms of usage of RFID in business can be credited to the retail major Wal-Mart which used the technology in inventory control and management. One major aspect of this project will be to bring out the usage of RFID in other areas of business which currently are not as famous as the Wal-Mart case.

RFID is a technology that is finding new areas of application everyday and as such new breakthroughs in the technology have their seed in an underlying demand for it, RFID is no exception. We will study the impact RFID could create on the betterment of various industries and daily life.

Another module of our project will consist of studying RFID as a business. Currently, the world is excited about the possibilities that RFID promises in the future but having a business of manufacturing RFID devices on a large scale is still seen as unprofitable.

Although RFID had helped in the development of numerous industries and improved various aspects of their operations but it has its own flip sides as well. In our initial reading and research we came across some shortcomings and fallacies of RFID. Thus in the light of all the upsides and downsides of this technology, we will be assessing the future and possible uses of RFID in business and general context.