RFID TECHNOLOGY - APPLICATIONS

APPLICATIONS

Current and proposed uses of RFID span a wide spectrum of application areas (e.g.: see Figure 2), and a fully comprehensive overview would certainly surpass the limits of this paper. It is, however, easy to see that the nature of a given use of RFID can be put in either one of three groups:
1) item instance or item class identification,
2) location identification,
3) data transfer from or to the RFID tag.
4.1. Instance or class identification
If RFID tags are only used for the purpose of item type or instance identification, usually, a data-base is maintained in the background to provide or receive the additional information needed. Augmented with this support, destination or way of handling can be determined for the given item, an already proven concept in a number of logistics solutions (several shipping and postal services, such as UPS, FedEx, USPS and Finland Post [8]). Also, examples in manufacturing demonstrate the benefits of RFID, such as with identifying individual car bodies in customized automotive pro-duction (BMW’s car body identification in their Dingolfing factory [5]), tracking of manufacturing (pre-delivery tracking and location of cars in Volkswagen’s Wolfsberg facility [12]) or even architec-tural construction processes (Skanska Finland applies Enterprixe’s 4D production model solution), automatic retooling of work-cells for the given item, and fail-safe identification of samples for quality control (Schreiner’s LogiData control system applied by Auto5000 GmbH, a supplier of Volks-wagen [15]; RFID-based administration of quality control at Ford’s Essex engine plant in Windsor, Ontario [12]; RFID-based identification of material test samples at the MTR Corporation of Hong Kong which builds and operates urban railways [12]). In the agriculture, farm animals can be identi-fied using RFID tags, and a retrieval service for lost pets also relies on RFID implants as the means of identification (‘Home Again’ pet retrieval service [13]). Also, RFID tags are widely relied on in security systems which grant access to facilities etc. depending on the given user’s level of authorization (even an example from a Chinese party congress is known [12]), while in other cases, even passports are equipped with tags (Department of Homeland Security is already testing RFID-equipped passports at several locations worldwide [15]). Speaking of security, RFID is also commonly used in anti-theft protection and RFID-based house arrest supervision is also contem-plated [9]. Another subclass of identity-related application examples contains the cases where the database in the background is not only queried upon reading a tag but also updated, e.g., to keep track of inventory changes (commonly used in warehouses, but future application is envisaged even for such cases as intelligent refrigerators which keep track of food supplies). In many cases, the short time lags and failure-free ID entries or even the resistance of RFID tags to adverse condi-tions (extreme temperatures, dirt, chemicals etc.) contribute substantially to the success of the ap-plication