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Zoomius Takes Motorsports Timing on a New Course
The passive system, Keane says, has proven to be within a few thousandths of a second in accuracy, when compared against an AMB system. According to AMB, its timing system is accurate to one thousandth of a second, but Keane says the Zoomius timing system's accuracy is good enough for all race organizers—be they race day organizers or top elite racers.
In early testing, Keane reports, Zoomius found that a tag was sometimes unreadable because a motorcycle or vehicle was positioned between that tag and a reader antenna on the course. Zoomius has addressed this problem by mounting antennas on a bridge above each of the course's read zones.
Zoomius is currently developing its own reader antennas, which Keane says will provide reading coverage all around a race track, using a proprietary design. The firm presently employs off-the-shelf antennas that are suspended over a racecourse to create read zones.
As far as speed limits with the new system—that is, whether the tags become unreadable when passing too quickly through a read zone—Keane indicates that during the test event the company timed last month, the system was able to detect the tags at the motorcycle's top speeds on the Reno-Fernley course. "The track has a long straightaway, and we clocked racers at 180 miles per hour," he states.
Because the tags are placed either on a motorcycle's plastic fairing or on a car's glass windshield, Keane says, the metal vehicle frames do not cause interference that would make the RFID tag unreadable. Therefore, no special materials are required behind the tag to provide buffering.
Another company that has tested Alien's passive EPC Gen 2 tags for a timing application is Hardcard, which is also considering using the tags for attendee access control and credentials. What's more, a sports timing company known as ChronoTrack has developed an EPC Gen 2 tracking system for footraces (see Gen 2 Tags Track Runner, Motorcycle Speeds).
In fact, when it comes to using Gen 2 tags for foot-race timing, the field of vendors is beginning to get competitive. Both IPICO and Racetimer are also offering EPC Gen 2-based timing systems (see IPICO Enters Race for RFID Sports Timing and UHF Tags Enter the Timing Race). All three vendors say that by making the tags inexpensive and disposable, they offer a lower cost of entry and easier system deployment than legacy RFID timing systems based on non-disposable low-frequency tags.
In early testing, Keane reports, Zoomius found that a tag was sometimes unreadable because a motorcycle or vehicle was positioned between that tag and a reader antenna on the course. Zoomius has addressed this problem by mounting antennas on a bridge above each of the course's read zones.
Zoomius is currently developing its own reader antennas, which Keane says will provide reading coverage all around a race track, using a proprietary design. The firm presently employs off-the-shelf antennas that are suspended over a racecourse to create read zones.
As far as speed limits with the new system—that is, whether the tags become unreadable when passing too quickly through a read zone—Keane indicates that during the test event the company timed last month, the system was able to detect the tags at the motorcycle's top speeds on the Reno-Fernley course. "The track has a long straightaway, and we clocked racers at 180 miles per hour," he states.
Because the tags are placed either on a motorcycle's plastic fairing or on a car's glass windshield, Keane says, the metal vehicle frames do not cause interference that would make the RFID tag unreadable. Therefore, no special materials are required behind the tag to provide buffering.
In fact, when it comes to using Gen 2 tags for foot-race timing, the field of vendors is beginning to get competitive. Both IPICO and Racetimer are also offering EPC Gen 2-based timing systems (see IPICO Enters Race for RFID Sports Timing and UHF Tags Enter the Timing Race). All three vendors say that by making the tags inexpensive and disposable, they offer a lower cost of entry and easier system deployment than legacy RFID timing systems based on non-disposable low-frequency tags.
