The Internet of Things era, RFID technology can bring what help

RFID is known as the abbreviation of Radio Frequency Identification, the Chinese name for “radio frequency identification technology. With the rapid development of high technology, driven by the era of interconnection, RFID is commonly used in the Internet of Things, medical, security, transportation and other fields. In recent years, RFID has also been widely used in the apparel industry, retail industry, and even gradually to other industries to branch out.

RFID technology principle RFID is a kind of non-contact automatic identification technology, it automatically identifies the target object and obtains relevant data through radio frequency signals, identification work without human intervention, can work in a variety of harsh environments. In simple terms, RFID is a wireless system, the basic RFID system by the electronic tag, reader and antenna three parts, when when the electronic tag into the magnetic field, if the reader received a special radio frequency signal, it can rely on the induction current obtained by the energy, send out the information stored in the chip or actively send a signal of a certain frequency. After the reader reads the information and decodes it, it is sent to the central information system for relevant data processing. Through the reader and the electronic tag between the non-contact data communication to achieve the purpose of identifying the target, RFID is also considered to be one of the most promising information technology in the 21st century.
The development history of RFID: derived from radar technology many people may not understand, RFID is first derived from radar technology. As early as 1948, the American scientist Harry Stockman published the article “communication using reflected power” laid the theoretical foundation of RFID technology; Between 1940-1950, the improvement and application of radar gave birth to RFID technology; 1950-1960: early exploration of RFID technology, mainly in the laboratory experimental research stage; 1960-1970: RFID theory was developed and began to be applied in practical applications; 1970-1980: RFID product development entered a period of great development, and early RFID applications began to appear; 1980- 1990: RFID products commercialization landed, related products gradually become part of people’s lives; 2000-present: RFID product types more abundant, active electronic tags, passive electronic tags and semi-passive electronic tags are developed, RFID product production costs further decline, the application field gradually increased.
RFID classification RFID can be divided into four categories according to the operating frequency, power supply mode, application scope and read-write type were. According to the working frequency can be divided into low frequency, low frequency, high frequency, ultra-high frequency and microwave, frequency different propagation speed, propagation distance is different; according to the power supply method can be divided into active, passive, semi-active three ways, corresponding to the active, passive and semi-active way to obtain energy; according to the application scope can be divided into closed-loop applications for enterprises and industries, as well as cross-industry open-loop method; according to read-write type can be divided into read-write card, a write Multiple read-out cards and read-only cards.

RFID advantages and disadvantages although RFID has been widely used in the relevant Internet of Things industry, but the technology itself has certain advantages and disadvantages.

The advantages of RFID

• (1) RFID brings an increase in efficiency, with thousands of information readings per second and the ability to efficiently process multiple tags at the same time, thus enabling companies to control costs and significantly improve efficiency, making the entire operational process transparent in real time and creating huge economic benefits;
• (2) RFID tags are not like barcode tags, to be scanned and read in alignment, only RFID tags are placed in the electromagnetic field formed by the device can read the information, this approach can reduce the work caused by manual errors, downgrade human resources waste, reduce the production of errors;
• (3) RFID tags on the data information can be repeatedly modified, which also means that the enterprise internal RFID tags can be recycled and reused, further saving the cost of running the enterprise.

The disadvantages of RFID

• (1) RFID cost is more expensive, coupled with the supporting transmitters, readers, encoders and antennas and other equipment, the cost further increased;
• (2) RFID tags once close to the reader, will be unconditionally triggered to send information, and therefore involves privacy issues;
• (3) The presence of metal, moisture in the environmental conditions, will produce interference with RFID identification, affecting the information read.

RFID market size is huge, how China’s development of the rise of the Internet of Things has led to the rapid development of RFID, it is estimated that the RFID market grew from 60.9 billion yuan in 2016 to 110 billion yuan in 2019, a 6-year compound growth rate of 14.5%. Domestic application areas in the development of RFID products have been more mature, electronic tickets, cell phone payments, card access and other life applications can see the figure of RFID. However, most of these applications belong to RFID low and high frequency band applications, and more high-end advanced high-frequency band applications, whether it is focused on research and development or production manufacturers are relatively few, still in the initial stage. Overall, in the country’s many RFID companies, really engaged in RFID UHF core technology development, with independent intellectual property rights product enterprises are not many, is a relatively weak link in China’s RFID industry.
RFID to help the rapid development of Internet of Things applications RFID technology has a pivotal position in the development of the Internet of Things, focusing on the Internet of Things perception layer, this paper focuses on the following industries as an example.
Transportation field in the field of transportation, RFID is most commonly referred to in the ETC system, ETC system is the so-called “non-stop toll collection system”, which can realize the vehicle without stopping at the same time to complete the automatic toll collection. The high new technology as the leading, when the vehicle body installs the RFID tag close to the ETC read-write range (usually for 1-10 meters), the ETC read-write transmits the microwave inquiry signal, the vehicle on the RFID tag receives the read-write inquiry signal, and will this signal and the electronic tag own data information (such as high speed mileage, vehicle information, etc.) to reflect back to the card reader. The biggest advantage of doing so is to reduce the trouble of manual charging, improve the efficiency of vehicle clearance and avoid the trouble of traffic jam.
Medical field RFID application in the hospital information system will significantly improve the efficiency of hospital assets operation and medical services. In the following aspects of the application is more mature: First, the management of the pharmaceutical supply chain, RFID tags can be in the manufacturing and distribution process at any point in the identification of physical objects. Can help pharmaceutical companies to produce a greater variety of more complex products in small batches, and in all nodes of the supply chain to monitor the drug, including accurate target batch loading, etc., thereby reducing the emergence of pharmaceutical problems, once the problem is also better to achieve drug traceability; second is the medical monitoring, hospitals will wear wrist tags for each patient. Medical personnel only need to scan the tag information with a handheld reader, you can know the patient information, the rescue of emergency patients will not be delayed, not to mention the occurrence of casualty misidentification and lead to medical accidents. Patients transferred to hospitals and other cases, but also to achieve the delivery of patient information error-free; Third, the hospital important assets and materials tracking and positioning applications, large medical centers generally have a large storage base of important medical assets and medical items, hospital logistics personnel need to find the right items from thousands of supplies every day according to the order. The use of RFID tags will make this search, verification process is extremely fast and accurate, and the tag itself can carry the item-related information, which can make the entire verification process speed increased by about 20 times.

The logistics field of the entire logistics system from the initial labeling of goods into the warehouse, to the middle of the inventory count, and the later out of the warehouse allocation, are closely related to RFID. For example, the new goods labeling into the warehouse, which is equipped with electronic tags with a unique ID number or write data can be analogous to the goods “ID number”, the data contains the name of the goods, purchase time, belonging to the warehouse, goods attributes, etc.. People only need to hold the reader a scan code can read the goods information. This process also saves a lot of time for inventory counting, staff only need to hold a reader to regularly inventory, close reading cargo tag information, and backstage management system can be compared to know whether the cargo information and backstage system is consistent, such as inconsistent system information can be corrected on site. Similarly, when the goods out of the warehouse, the export gate RFID reader to read the goods tag to obtain the warehouse information, and verify the shipping products and the warehouse list listed in the product batch number and warehouse location is correct. After the warehouse is completed, if there is any problem with the goods in the future, you can also find out what problems have occurred before the goods are delivered to the user by way of traceability.

Source: China RFID Tags Manufacturer – Actility Technologies Company Limited (www.tractility.com)