View Technologies has commercially released a passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID solution designed to make it possible for companies to track the locations of UHF tags up to 150 feet away, with location granularity of less than 1 foot to 3 feet. The real-time location system (RTLS), known as inView, consists of Echo smartantenna technology designed by St. Louis technology company RF Controls and manufactured by tools and hardware firm Stanley Black and Decker, as well as RF Controls’ RFC-6100XR RFID reader and View Technologies’ inView software. End users in three sectors—logistics, manufacturing and big-box-style retail—are already using the inView system in pilots and full deployments. The product is being offered through various solution providers, such as RFID middleware companies and integrators that tend to install such systems in those sectors.
View Technologies, a joint venture between Stanley Black & Decker and RF Controls, aims to provide RTLS solutions to businesses more accustomed to employing portals or handheld readers to interrogate passive EPC Gen 2 UHF tags, also known as RAIN RFID tags. The Echo antenna uses steerable phased-array technology allowing it to create a cone-shapedread zone for long distances, while related software can create zones within the Echoantenna‘s range as small as a customer needs, down to less than 1 foot in granularity. The term “steerable phased array” refers to the use of an array of antennas able to create varying beam direction and radiation patterns to reinforce one direction of RF transmission while suppressing the transmission of RF signals in other directions.
With inView, companies can know where their RFID-tagged items are located in real time, as well as when they move and in what direction, explains Steve Hudson, View Technologies’ president. They can then collect analytics based on that data, view it in real time or receive alerts when specific events occur, such as an item heading through a door.
The technology is being offered in three tiers, based on the level of intelligence that a customer or systems integrator requires. At the first tier, known as Locate, the inView platform delivers raw location data based on the three-dimensional position identified by the reader and software. That raw data can then be managed by an end user’s existing software or a solution provider’s middleware. The next tier, dubbed Track, creates virtual zones through which the item moves, and the inView software presents that data to the user in the form of information regarding where within a facility or area that product is going. The final tier, called Act, includes rules-based events, such as sending alerts in the event of an unauthorized movement or updating the status of goods based on their movement through a shipping dock or other area.
- Post Time: 12-08-15 - By: http://www.rfidang.com