Friday, October 17, 2008

RFID

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders.

An RFID tag is an object that can be applied to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves. Some tags can be read from several meters away and beyond the line of sight of the reader.

Most RFID tags contain at least two parts. One is an integrated circuit for storing and processing information, modulating and demodulating a radio-frequency (RF) signal, and other specialized functions. The second is an antenna for receiving and transmitting the signal. Chipless RFID allows for discrete identification of tags without an integrated circuit, thereby allowing tags to be printed directly onto assets at a lower cost than traditional tags.

Today, RFID is used in enterprise supply chain management to improve the efficiency of inventory tracking and management. However, growth and adoption in the enterprise supply chain market is limited because current commercial technology does not link the indoor tracking to the overall end-to-end supply chain visibility. Coupled with fair cost-sharing mechanisms, rational motives and justified returns from RFID technology investments are the key ingredients to achieve long-term and sustainable RFID technology adoption [1].

BARCODING

A bar code (also barcode) is an optical machine-readable representation of data. Originally, bar codes represented data in the widths (lines) and the spacings of parallel lines and may be referred to as linear or 1D (1 dimensional) barcodes or symbologies. But they also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns within images termed 2D (2 dimensional) matrix codes or symbologies. In spite of there being no bars, 2D systems are generally referred to as barcodes as well.

The first use of barcodes was to automate grocery checkout systems, a task where they have become almost universal today. Their use has spread to many other roles as well, tasks that are generically referred to as Auto ID Data Capture (AIDC). Newer systems, like RFID, are attempting to make inroads in the AIDC market, but the simplicity, universality and low-cost of barcodes has limited the role of these newer systems. It will cost about US$0.005 to implement a barcode compared to passive RFID which still costs about US$0.07 to US$0.30 per tag.[1]

Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers or scanned from an image by special software. In Japan, most cell phones have built-in scanning software for 2D codes, and similar software is becoming available on smartphone platforms.