Avery Dennison Ramps Up Its RFID R&D

The U.K. research team concentrates on the physics of RFID, Cornick says, developing tests to assess how tag and interrogator combinations work together, and to evaluate chip performance and antenna design. "We rigorously test new chips for functionality," he says, "well beyond the manufacturer's claims—which usually involve sensitivity and memory—to understand communication rates, interference rejection, compliance with the Gen 2 protocol and the ease of accessing special features that are part of Gen 2."

Avery Dennison RFID partners with a number of companies, including label converters, independent software vendors and systems integrators. "Understanding compatibility issues between new chips and the hardware choices available helps Avery Dennison RFID partners get it right the first time," Cornick says. "No surprises—that's the goal!"

Finally, all three of Avery Dennison RFID's R&D units work on application development, often at a customer's behest. "Our technical teams will work closely with the [customer] to investigate the holistic RFID solution to meet their technical and business needs," Cornick says. The company also focuses its R&D efforts on improving existing uses of RFID, particularly those in the supply chain, retail apparel and aviation sectors. At present, the company is investing in R&D on several new RFID applications, including employing the technology to track data cartridges and optical media (such as CDs and DVDs), electronics assets (such as TV set-top boxes and rack servers) and horticulture products (plants or cut flowers).

According to Cornick, RFID continues to make inroads in item-level tracking, despite conventional wisdom suggesting the industry wouldn't use the technology for item-level tracking until tags dropped below five cents apiece. "The reality is that we are seeing strong traction in item-level tagging with tag prices well above that level," he says. Currently, he notes, a small, general-purpose label containing an RFID inlay costs between 10 and 12 cents, whereas specialty labels, encapsulated tags and high-performance tags range in price from 15 cents to several dollars, with all tag prices varying depending on volume.

Additionally, RFID is gaining momentum in tracking cold-chain products. Earlier this month, Avery Dennison RFID and Impinj joined forces to help European retailer Metro Group implement a pilot to track fresh meat in the retailer's butcher departments, and at checkout lanes (see At Metro's New Future Store, RFID Helps Assure Meat Quality.) "This project does finally answer that age-old question of 'Where's the beef?'" Cornick says.