Week 5: Lab 3 + Assignment 1 Presentation

Lab 3: Access Control System using RFID technology

In this lab, we had to design a Java programming to run the experiment follow the instructions. That was a good practise in doing Java programming and understanding RFID technology. There are a lot of applications base on RFID technology that we thought out after finishing this lab.

Assignment 1 Presentation

There are five teams and each team has their own perspective about RFID and its benefit. The most common among all the presenting teams is "RFID is very useful and popular with lots of important applications".

RFID provides the total solution: 100% identification and reading accuracy and reliability in liquid, metal or organic material environments, in multiple orientations or close proximity, and in multi-item bulk.


Benefits of using RFID Technology:

• Perfect asset management
• Inventory control and distribution
• Product availability
• Productivity gains in distribution and receiving
• Reduce inventory losses and write-offs
• Labor cost reductions
• Reduce administrative errors
• Visibility and accountability at every point in the business process
• Improved and optimized speed and reliability of the business processes
• Anti-counterfeiting
• Improved security, reduced theft and fraud
• Improved information flow and data integrity
  

Week 4: Using RFID technology to track outdoor assets

We've run through the introduction to tracking of outdoor assests using RFID technology. A typical implementation of such tracking system would be in the Automotive Manufacturing Industry environment.

• A brand new car from the manufacturing plant is unloaded from a trunk
• Car's ID number and bar-coded instructions pertaining to the details of this car is scanned into an RFID tag which is hung in on the car's rear-view mirror
• Car is move to a vacant parking lot
• The location receivers read the tag and reflect the exact car location on the map at the selt-service kiosk

These are some of key benefits for implementing such a tracking system:

• Ensure visibility of all vehicles in the premise
• Provide up-to-date information of the vehicle details
• Locate a vehicle quickly and easily (save timea and cost)
• Generate accurate inventory report
• Prevent theft and misplace of vehicle

Exercise A: Activating Tags using AeroScout Tag Manager and Activator

Tag on the right hand side comes with call button functionality where you can configure to send messages when the button is pressed or released. Each Tag carries a unique MAC (media access control) address that the location engine uses it to identify the identify of the assets that are being tagged.

I learnt how to activate them and use it in my application.


Exercise B: Configure the tracking system using AeroScout Engine

The AeroScout Engine is the software responsible for processing the data received from the field to compute the real-time positioning of the assests.

I learnt how to download map, configure location receivers and exciters to track the vehicle in the parking lots


Exercise C: Analyze presence, choke-point & real-time location using AeroScout Engine

I observed the different way of reporting an asset location and learnt how to activate tag positioning in the AeroScout Engine

Week 3: RFID Technology in Inventory Control + Lab 1

The benefits that RFID provides are many. Following are some that made RFID more superior to other Identification Technology such as barcode.

Passive RFID tag

Passive RFID technology is currently the most commonly applied technology. Passive tag success can be attributed to its relatively lower cost and simplicity in used. The tags come in many sizes and form. They are light-weight and relatively low cost to maintain.
Passive RFID tags are categorized based on the frequency they operate in – Low frequency (LF), High frequency (HF) and Ultra-high frequency (UHF).

Week 2: RFID Case Studies and RFID Standard

As we have learned during week 1, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a relatively new technology to the supply chain, although it has been around since the 50's. RFID tags can be used in different configurations: Active/ Passive, Read-only, Write once/ read many (WORM), Read/ Write.

There are many benefits of RFID:

• RFID technology has the ability to send relatively large amounts of data with the product as it travels through the supply chain
• Read/ write RFID tags can be updated through the manufacturing steps of a product
• By lowering the error rate of goods moved through the supply chain, vendors can share in the savings realized by RFID technology

By using RFID, Wal-Mart saved EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS!!!

• 6.7 billion -- eliminating the need to have people scan barcodes on pallets
• $600 million -- reduced out of stock
• $575 million -- RFID scanning of products automatically reduces administrative error and vendor fraud
• $300 million -- better tracking of the more than 1 billion pallets and cases that move through its distribution centers each year
• $180 million -- improved visibility of what products are in the supply chain in its own distribution centers
• Total = $8.35 billion -- total pre-tax saving is higher than the total revenue of more than half the companies on the Fortune 500.

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ECPglobal:

• Standards and govemance
• Public policy
• Training templates
• Brands, marketing

Migration Paths

• Global Trade Item Number (GTIN): Item, case, pallet; 14-digit generalization of product barcodes
• Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC): Logistics units (shipping containers); SSCC is unique to a particular shipment
• Global Location Number (GLN): Physical, functional, legal entities; company division or department, down to specific storage area within a building
• Global Returnable Asset Identifier (GRAI): Rented or loaned objects (pallets, gas cylinders, beer kegs...)
• Global Individual Asset Identifier (GIAI): High-value long-lived assets

EPCglobal Network Infrastructure

(Grandiose) vision is global common standardized network infrastructure:

• Tags with EPC's identify physical objects
• Readers with filtering/ aggregation gather information about tags
• Information about EPC's exchanged using Physical Markup Language
• PML resources identified on the Internet by the Object Naming Service

Instant ONS

• EPC is communicated in URI format
• Tag EPC (binary data) converted to pure identity
• Call ONS to find servers with information on EPC

Instant PML

• Markup language based on XML
• Core elements are sensors, observations, observables
• Example: tag read...

EPCIS: Addresses two fundamentally different types of data

• time-stamped data
• attribute data

EPCglobal Summary

• EPCglobal vision is Internet of Things
• Key standards already existing or soon to come: Electronic Product Code, Tag standards (class 0/1, Gen II)
• Network vision is more complex, path to realization difficult: PML, ONS, EPCIS, Savant, Partial/ delayed implementations likely