PERSONALIZATION AND PAIRING
SkyeTek sees a big market in using RFID for personalization. Brunswick, the exercise equipment manufacturer, plans to use the technology to automate the configuration of stair climbers and treadmills. By embedding tags in health-club member- ship cards, clubs automate members' workout histories and save staff time otherwise wasted in
manually setting up the machines.
RFID integrates the physical world
with IT services and ultimately with
Internet Protocol. RFID readers embedded in office equipment like conference
phones or copiers can readily automate
departmental billing. Sirit Inc. sold
2500 of its Infinity Micro modules to
AirGATE for integration into an RFID-enabled telephone system. A telephony
OEM is now putting that system into
phones in correctional facilities nationwide. Prisoners will wear RFID-enabled
wristbands to identify who is making a
prison-based collect phone call.
Other RFID developers are licensing
their technology, too. In the active
RFID arena, Savi Technology opened
its technology via the ISO 18000-7
active RFID air protocol standard,
operating at 433.92 MHz with applications in shipping container security.
"Broad participation in the licensing
program is a sign of a maturing market
for active RFID and a confirmation that
standardization will continue to turbo-charger this marketplace," says Savi CEO
Bob Kramer. He notes that the standard
helps establish a baseline for the interoperability of RFID-based electronic seals
and container security devices.
NFC NEARLY HERE
Pairing is also
crucial for the Near Field Communication (NFC) initiative. NFC offers a two-way, short-range communications protocol. NFC-enabled devices can act as
either an RFID tag or reader, depending
on the application.
NFC was selected in November as a
connectivity solution for Wi-Fi-enabled devices. To set up Wi-Fi communications using NFC, two devices only need
to be brought close together. NFC handles the pairing, establishing the communications protocols between them.
According to Manuel Albers, director
of regional marketing for the Americas,
Identification, at NXP Semiconductors,
the first Wi-Fi and NFC combo products
should hit the market during the second
half of this year. For example, Sirit has
demonstrated a USB dongle that incorporates NFC to facilitate Wi-Fi setup, a
function that many consumers could use
some help with right away.
"Wireless routers have a return rate of
up to 70%, simply because people are
struggling with setting the device up,"
says Albers. "Cutting down that return
rate could pay for integrating NFC, or at
least including a USB fob to facilitate the
automatic setup."
Standards groups for Wireless USB,
Bluetooth, and Ultra-Wideband (UWB)
are considering other NFC "pairing"
initiatives. "These are all applications
NXP didn't even have in mind when we
created NFC, in combination with Sony
2002," says Albers.
Microsoft has joined the NFC Forum
and is looking to ensure compatibility
and support of NFC with drivers in the
Microsoft Windows platform.
"Microsoft has a lot of good ideas" on
how to use NFC, says Albers, adding,
"these are all being discussed under
NDA (non-disclosure agreements)."
The cell phone remains the key market focus for NFC. "Once you have a
significant deployment of NFC-enabled
phones," says Albers, "you have a
broad infrastructure of inexpensive readers. Simply add NFC on
to the mobile phone, and you
have an RFID-enabled reader
in your hand."
The NFC-enabled phone,
he says, complies with RFID
standards: for contactless
smart-card payment infrastructure, ISO 14443; for
object identification and
object tracking, ISO 15693
(for the technical side of the
implementation) and ISO 18000 (for the application
side of the supply chain). An
initiative is under way to harmonize the EPC Gen 2 standard with ISO 18000 for UHF (Gen 2)
and HF 13.56 frequencies ().
"With that, you are compliant with
already deployed standards, and you can
integrate transport and payment and can
read tags attached to objects and goods
in the supply chain," says Albers. With
NFC cell phones integrated into the
equation, he adds, "you have very inexpensive readers available." Users can
add NFC functionality to existing
phones via a Secure Digital (SD) card
slot, enabling smart phones like Palm
devices with the contactless interface.
RFID ON THE PHONE
IDTechEx
expects RFID-enhanced phones to grow
to 300 million units by 2010 and 600
million units by 2015 (). LG's
Active Tagging Group in Korea says it
aims to sell 1 billion active tags by 2010.
IDTechEx also predicts growth from
RFID used in combination with other
wireless technologies. RFID can be
merged with GPS or GSM for identifying
and locating people or assets. RFID tags
can piggyback on preexisting Bluetooth,
Wi-Fi, or two-way radio communications. Examples include Radianse combining active RFID with Bluetooth to
locate nurses in hospitals and Connexion2's use of GSM to contact police if
social workers are threatened.
Go to "Chips In The Board", "EPCglobal's Gen 2", "What About Security?", "Active RFID Tag
Suppliers", and
"New Infrastructure, New Applications".