Radio Frequency Identification

Business Applications of Radio Frequency Identification and its future uses:

RFID tags are intelligent bar codes that can talk to a networked system to track every product that you put in your shopping cart. RFID tags, a technology once limited to tracking cattle, are tracking consumer products worldwide. Many manufacturers use the tags to track the location of each product they make from the time it's made until it's pulled off the shelf and tossed in a shopping cart. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology uses radio waves to identify people or objects. There is a device that reads information contained in a wireless device or “tag” from a distance without making any physical contact or requiring a line of sight.

RFID is an e-tagging technology that can be used to provide electronic identity to any object. Electronic information about an object is stored in RFID chips embedded or attached to the object. Using an RFID reader, the electronic identity (code in the form of several bits of data) can be read wirelessly using radio waves. An RFID reader at the gate of a warehouse, for example, can immediately sense all the RFID-tagged objects within a container as soon as the container passes by the gate. RFID tags can either be passive (cheap and work without any battery) or active (costly, yet have an embedded power source). Further, the electronic identification stored in a tag can either be fixed or dynamically updatable.

The range of sensing RFID tags from an RFID reader can vary from a few centimeters to a few meters depending on the frequency of operation and the type of tags. RFID tags are very rugged and come in several form factors. The RFIDs can even be embedded in a piece of paper or in a form that can be permanently tagged to a shirt. In large volumes, RFID tags can be very cheap.

RFID technology is critical to an enterprise because the ability to bring otherwise passive objects online can have several benefits to businesses,...