This is a technical article about RFID, for many it is a new technology, but in coming years, RFID will be the “WAY” were anything will be identified as…….If this is interesting please read below.

For almost 9 years, I have been working with Smart cards and RFID technologies. It was in the Year 2000, Times of India group had opened it’s first Music Store Planet M in South Extension, New Delhi. 90’s bollywood star Manisha koirala inaugurated the show room(Believe me, I have not tried to speak to her, but I bought a shirt to wear worth Rs.600, just to meet her).

Technically, It was first time in India, ZICOM my previous company promoted the Electronic Article Surveillance System, breaking the barrier of  Magnetic-Acoustic based tags which were widely in circulation.
My company ZICOM got break through with Times group for EAS order with RFID supplies and 40,000 Tags to be placed in Audio CD’s and Cassettes. I still remember those days, my team and Times Group engineers worked out round the clock for the grand opening, While we were on full swing for the Pilot run and testing, the Antenna’s Transponder/Readers performance was very nice. In terms of detecting the theft articles moved from store, without payment.

But there was a lapse on the performance of the Detection,  on circulating/pasting thousands of tag on the CD’s covers, we have found a  flaw on the performance, because  CD’s are being a metal content the RFID signal was getting blocked and the theft articles were not detected in the range. After prior analyzing we found that the the TAGs were suppose to be placed on the corner edges of CD cases to avoid signal blocking.

Virtually, the logic is that RFID tags will not perform well, when there is metal which could block the flow of radio waves.

How EAS works. ?

Any Item placed inside the store is placed with a RFID tag, the TAG has minute conductivity which you can call as a fuse. When a customer buys a product, he moves to the counter and pays the money.
the counter staff, will swipe the CD on the small reader placed on the sale counter, which would blow the fuse and break the antenna circuit which is inside the tag. If the user not paid, staff not swiped, or it is a case of theft, the antenna’s placed on the entry exit points would sound a panic alarm.

Interestingly, we got many theft cases within 3 days of Antenna activation, most caught were seems to be dressed very decent, they were not aware of that technology is in place, so Times Group virtually created a psychology to control article theft. It was a grand success, all through the run.

Some facts .
1) Smart tickets used for Ticketing also RFID,
2) Time Access cards are RFID
3) US and many other country passports are packed with RFID
4) Most Shopping mall’s today places an Article Surveillance System, Including the shoes, textiles, costumes & jewels.

Future facts
1) All objects and item, including humans beings will have a RFID tag implanted as an Identification on special cases.
2) Most Wild animals will have such tags.
3) The Tags not only have Identification number, it would also hold the complete history in short.
4) Lot of time could be saved, in classifying what is in Basket and what is billed!

Some technical Facts
PASSIVE RFID means, Tags are powered through Radio Frequencies.(Paper Tags)
ACTIVE RFID means Tags are provided with internal Battery.

 Frequency ranges of RFID

Frequency ranges for RFID-Systems
frequency range	comment	allowed fieldstrength / transmission power
< 135 kHz	low frequency, inductive coupling	72 dBµA/m max
3.155 … 3.400 MHz	EAS	13.5 dBµA/m
6.765 .. 6.795 MHz	medium frequency (ISM), inductive coupling	42 dBµA/m
7.400 .. 8.800 MHz	medium frequency, used for EAS (electronic article surveilance) only	9 dBµA/m
13.553 .. 13.567 MHz	medium frequency (13.56 MHz, ISM), inductive coupling, wide spread usage for contactless smartcards (ISO 14443, MIFARE, LEGIC, …), smartlabels (ISO 15693, Tag-It, I-Code, …) and item management (ISO 18000-3).	60(!) dBµA/m
26.957 .. 27.283 MHz	medium frequency (ISM), inductive coupling, special applications only	42 dBµA/m
433 MHz	UHF (ISM), backscatter coupling, rarely used for RFID	10 .. 100 mW
865 .. 868 MHz	UHF (RFID only), Listen before talk	100 mW ERP Europe only
865.6 .. 867.6 MHz	UHF (RFID only), Listen before talk	2W ERP (=3.8W EIRP) Europe only
865.6 .. 868 MHz	UHF (SRD), backscatter coupling, new frequency, systems under developement	500 mW ERP, Europe only
902 .. 928 MHz	UHF (SRD), backscatter coupling, several systems	4 W EIRP – spread spectrum, USA/Canada only
2.400 .. 2.483 GHz	SHF (ISM), backscatter coupling, several systems,	4 W – spread spectrum, USA/Canada only
2.446 .. 2.454 GHz	SHF (RFID and AVI (automatic vehicle identification))	0.5 W EIRP outdoor 4 W EIRP, indoor
5.725 .. 5.875 GHz	SHF (ISM), backscatter coupling, rarely used for RFID	4 W USA/Canada, 500 mW Europe

Frequency range source : http://www.rfid-handbook.de/rfid/frequencies.html

Any interesting queries or technical questions, I would like to hear, write such comments directly to devarajan@platinbill.com