IDENTEC SOLUTIONS

Interoperability for active RFID: at last, different vendors work together like passive RFID!

Active RFID is the style of RFID that has been around the longest.  It has remained, until the 18000-7 standard, a world of conflicting proprietary approaches ranging from frequency choice to low level protocol nuts and bolts.   There was no inherent advantage for any one vendor to share its technology or to push for a common approach – the market was still very much about differentiation due to the hardware technology itself.  ISO 18000-7:2008, adopted and initiated by the US DoD, based on their practical experiences with a proprietary approach, has led to this break through. 

This breakthrough is similar to what the passive world experienced when EPC Global came into being, Wal-Mart and the DoD adopted it, and then all the hardware providers started to play nice with each other.

The military had many reasons for doing this, but the bottom-line for the commercial side is to open up the prospect that infrastructures and in-transit visibility systems could be built and be cost effective.  What has been needed for active RFID to mimic the interoperability success of the passive world was a set of standards from a recognized standards body and a clout heavy adopter.  The US Department of Defense and its NATO partners (about 40 nations in total) are that clout heavy adopter and the ISO standards group is that globally recognized standards body.

The problem DoD, NATO and the other allies have used active RFID to solve is nothing new to commercial entities.  Simply put, how do I track my stuff from shipment to destination when there is no common infrastructure, technology, or agreement to allow such tracking to be both timely and cost effective?  Shipping companies have resisted adoption of any one particular technology without a significant adoption base.  The new ISO standard and its adoption by DoD has created the opportunity for shippers, ocean carriers, port operators, truckers and airlines to follow their lead and begin to build that flexible infrastructure to answer the question: “Where’s my stuff?”

References:
You can learn more about:
The ISO 18000-7 standard by visiting the Dash-7 Alliance web site (http://www.dash7.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=2).

In addition to this blog posting, we have included on the IDENTEC SOLUTIONS site a white paper titled, Perfected Technology to Manage an Imperfect World – Active RFID Standardization and Interoperability, ISO 18000-7:2008 and RFID III.  Please see this paper for more details on this subject.

http://www.identecsolutions.com/whitepapers.html

by Tom Ryan
VP, Defense and Aerospace

Issue of Interoperability in Active RFID

Until recently, in the active RFID space, interoperability had not existed. Most players in this space have been keeping their technology proprietary, with variations in frequency allocation and channel utilization, anti-collision, interference avoidance and other factors. Perhaps you are wondering what is the reason for this? There are several. The main reason includes a lack of standardization and a united front pushing for the adoption of one type of technology and the need for interoperability throughout its global supply chain. This is now changing.  In part, this movement can be attributed to the U.S. DoD issuing the RFID III solicitation to expand their pool of suppliers of active RFID technology. The RFID III contract requires all transponders and interrogators from all suppliers to comply with ISO 18000-7 standard and be interoperable. The standard itself is being further supported by Dash 7 Alliance (www.dash7.org) whose ultimate goal is to foster improvements and extensions to the ISO 18000-7 standard and encourage the development and promote usage of compliant products. So interoperability seems to be well underway for active RFID!
 
IDENTEC SOLUTIONS is  proud technology partner with two of the four RFID III contracted suppliers for the US Department of Defense, the world’s largest consumer of active RFID technology.

By Eva Zeisel
Director of Operations