Trolley Scan RFID
Trolley Scan (South Africa) invents RFID-radar
Trolley Scan announces major development in RFID technology.
TROLLEY SCAN develops low cost RFID-radar solution to identify and locate cheap RFID tags.
JOHANNESBURG,SOUTH AFRICA 24 OCTOBER 2005
Trolley Scan (Pty) Ltd, a Johannesburg,South Africa based
developer of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technologies
announced the development of an amazing new RFID technology
that they have trademarked “RFID-radar”.
In the past RFID readers were limited to identify tags that
were in the reader zone. Based around a major discovery made
by Trolley Scan, RFID-radar based readers will now be able to
identify, locate and track those same multiple tags in the reader zone.
Said Mike Marsh, Managing Director of Trolley Scan -”The breakthrough
with RFID-radar is the ability to measure the
distance travelled by a signal from a transponder to a reader accurately,
over long distances, using minimal radio spectrum
to minimise effects on other users, and with very low cost transponders and readers.
This measurement allows us to identify, locate accurately and track the
movement of tens of transponders in front of a reader at the same time.
In older generation RFID systems, operating ranges were a few centimeters,
so location information was not important as the transponder was always close
to the reader. In modern systems we have increased the operating range to tens of
meters and will soon reach the one hundred meter range mark with passive tags.
Here location information together with the identity information becomes
essential as so many transponders can be located in such a large area.”
Said Marsh- “In the past it was not possible to measure the range of a transponder
from a reader. The practicalities of UHF RFID mean that traditional approaches
such as signal strength variation cannot be applied for range measurements.
Our newly invented technique allows us to measure the range of a transponder
to an accuracy of 0,5 meters and a pointing direction of just 1 degree, for transponders
as far away as 100 meters, with up to 100 transponders in the zone at a time.
This development is revolutionary, in that instead of needing expensive
transponders and readers, our development allows this technique to be
applied to the “US$five cent” transponder and the “US$100″ reader.
We make the measurements from a single reader site, making the equipment
suitable for use in mobile applications such as when the reader is
fitted to a forklift truck.”
The new technology will result in the development of an entire new set of
applications for computer based equipment.
Applicatiions could include the location of goods in a warehouse;
tracking of individual animals in a herd; the monitoring of the
movement of assets in a building; the location of parcels and airline luggage in a
warehouse; the monitoring of children in a creche; or the monitoring of security zones
to ensure secure areas are avoided.
The impact of RFID-radar technology on the future generations of RFID systems is
going to be significant. Already more than 100 companies from all over the globe have
contacted Trolley Scan about getting prototypes, commercial versions or
OEM modules for incorporating into their own products.
In the future there will be RFID readers that just give identity information,
and there will be RFID-radar type readers that give identity, location and tracking information.
Photos of the RFID-radar and the test installation can be seen at
http://www.rfid-radar.com/
* * * * * * * * * *
About Trolley Scan (Pty) Ltd
—————————–
Trolley Scan have proven to be a major creative
force in the development of UHF RFID
technologies.
Founded in 1995, the staff of Trolley Scan have
a pedigree that goes back to 1990 when the first
low cost RFID protocol was developed by the
founder while working for a South African
government research organisation, culminating in
1994 in the demonstration of a supermarket
trolley containing 38 items being scanned
automatically in a supermarket in Pretoria. In
1998, the founders of Trolley Scan developed an
entirely new set of protocols for UHF RFID which
they have been actively promoting. They also
have addressed the situation of the 3
dimensional scanning of goods, and
have developed a very low power RFID version
which they commercialise under the EcoTag
trademark.
In August 2005 Trolley Scan invented RFID-radar.
Trolley Scan are based in Johannesburg South
Africa.
Trolley Scan licence their patents and technology
to companies around the world who wish to produce
this technology. Trolley Scan sell RFID
systems to users in 44 countries.
Complete systems can be ordered via their website.
About UHF RFID
—————
RFID systems comprise of a transponder that is
attached to the goods to be identified and a
reader that converts the information in those
transponders to a computer compatible format for
processing. The transponder can comprise of a
simple antenna and a small integrated circuit
that can be produced at low cost. Operating in
the 860 to 960 MHz (UHF) band, the transponder
can be identified meters away from the reader,
can be identified in a group with up to 1000
other transponders when being read, and can be
identified very quickly. In view of the system
using radio waves for energy and information
transfer, it is not necessary for the
transponder and reader to be in line of sight.
Potential use of these systems is extensive,
from herd animal tracking, library books,
pallets, warehousing, bank and postal bags,
asset tracking, airline luggage, vehicle
monitoring (access and parking), to intelligent
buildings (tracking files, documents and assets
moving around an office to minimise finding
time).
The ultimate goal is to use these transponders
with their inbuilt anti-shoplifting features to
replace the barcodes labelling goods in a retail
store allowing filled supermarket trolleys to be
scanned in seconds in unmanned self service
checkout aisles.
RFID-radar
———-
RFID-radar is a new development that includes
a measurement of range from the reader to the transponder.
This measurement is made repeatedly allowing
the reader to report range and tracking information
for all transponders in the zone. The major
development comes from the ability to measure
the range accurately from a single reader
position. This single measurement
point allows mobile operation, as well as 2D and 3D
location information of all transponders in the zone.
The measurement of range is a major breakthrough,
as the radio signals travel at 300 000 kilometers/second
and the timing accuracy measurements are limited to
1/10000th of a second. The RFID-radar has to operate in the
very limited radio spectrum shared with the many users
who use radio devices, such as cell phones.
RFID-radar uses just 10kHz of radio spectrum and is so
enviromentally friendly that two RFID-radar systems
can operate within 4 meters of each other.
The RFID-radar delivers positioning accuracy of each transponder
in the zome to 0.5 meters with a maximum range of 100 meters.
The pointing accuracy of a vector for locating in 2D and
3D can be as accurate as 1 degree for each transponder.
Photographs
———–
Photographs for publishing of RFID-radar can be found at
http://rfid-radar.com/presspic.html
Trolleyponder and EcoTag are registered
trademarks of Trolley Scan (Pty) Ltd
RFID-radar is the trademark of Trolley Scan.
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