AIM News: Experts discussion about the long lasting RFID labels
The “AIM” is worldwide the most important association for automatic identification, data capturing and mobile data communication. It promotes the international corporation and develops together with all participating companies new intelligent AutoID ideas. His working group EREG (European RFID Experts Group) currently tries together with the manufacturers of chips, inlays and labels to find a way to keep the reading characteristics of RFID labels on adequate investment periods constant.
RFID – quality: The requirements
RFID labels – also known as RFID transponders, RFID tags or RFID labels – are increasingly being used in all industries to identify objects using RFID readers, such as in production control. In general, RFID solutions play an important role in the realization of the future concept Industry 4.0. The communication between the label and the reader via RF: radio frequency, so electromagnetic waves. Depending on the range of theses waves a RFID system works with greater or smaller reading range. RFID labels contain a so called inlay composed out of a chip and an antenna. Meanwhile, the RFID technology is on the market for many years and like any other technology the components develop further, as well as the chips. “New generations of RFID chips can cause the increasing of the reading range of labels, which in a individual case is an undesirable effect like in the production control” reports Wolf-Rüdiger Hansen, CEO of AIM-D. “That could lead to reader that is calibrated with labels of a proven generation of chips, suddenly reads labels, which it shouldn’t read because they belong to another production line or cell.” PANMOBIL reported about that problem in the last edition of AIM-News from June 5th, 2014. The working group EREG (European RFID Experts Group) of the industry association AIM has taken up this issue and is in the process along with the manufacturers of chips, inlays and labels to find a way to keep the reading characteristics of RFID labels on adequate investment periods constant. So it is conceivable that labels with chips of a new generation will be changed in Design, so that the previous properties remain constant. Another solution would be that the chip manufacturers provide new chips so that they could be calibrated to the past performance, if necessary. Examples of such variable chips already exist in view of the requirements of data protection.
Expert discussion at the EECC to solve the RFID capturing problems
The AIM experts are currently concerned with the analyzing the topic. Therefore an expert discussion took place at the EECC (European EPC Competence Center) in Neuss. The EECC has proven experience in the measurement of RFID labels and in the appraisement of the different performance parameters. In medium terms the AIM association will host a roundtable discussion at which the manufacturer of the technology components and the users are invited to find a common solution.
The solution should be in the frame of accepted standards and as per AIM-Ds shouldn’t lead to that label manufacturer or users are dependent on proprietary chips. “For an industry association it is a common and noble task to pay attention to such constraints” says Hansen. Results of this meeting you will read here soon in the PANMOBIL [blog].
More News about the work of the AIM-D and from the world of AutoID you can find in the PANMOBIL Newsletter http://www.panmobil.com/newsletter/
