ODIN Technologies Unveils End-to-End EPC Gen 2 Tracking for Supply Chains

The control unit and wings can be affixed via magnets to the inside of a steel shipping container; the control unit attaches to the container's ceiling, while the two wings adhere to the side walls. All three components are connected together via CAT-5 cabling. One SMART Container can be installed within a container in 60 seconds or less, according to Sweeney—a feat he demonstrated at RFID Journal LIVE! 2009, being held this week in Orlando, Fla. ODIN Technologies unveiled its SMART Container yesterday at the event, and the new product is one of 10 finalists in the Best in Show categroy of this year's RFID Journal Awards, taking place at the conference.

The active RFID component supports both 433 MHz tags compliant with the ISO 18000-7 standard, and 2.4 GHz tags that employ an air-interface protocol compliant with the ANSI 371.1 real-time location system (RTLS) standard. The SMART Container control unit's active RFID component would send the EPC Gen 2 tag reads to an active RFID tag installed within the container. That active tag would then communicate with active RFID interrogators in yards or depots that the shipping containers move into or out of.

For now, the control unit must be manually programmed to communicate via either active RFID, satellite or cellular technologies. According to Sweeney, ODIN Technologies is currently working on a second generation of the system that would first search for active RFID, then cellular and then satellite connectivity (the most expensive form of communications). The unit can be programmed to activate at intervals to transmit the passive tag reads culled from inside the container. GPS coordinates are regularly sent to the control unit, which are then sent back out during designated times configured into the unit, via the specified communications.

Although the SMART Container is new, Sweeney says the system has been tested for approximately 18 months by the U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command's U.S. Naval Construction Force, known as Seabees. The Seabees construct bases, roadways and airstrips, as well as other construction projects supporting the military, and have been using the SMART Containers to track tools and equipment within mobile warehouses that are shipped around the United States from Gulfport, Miss.

In addition, ODIN Technologies is testing the SMART Container with an electronics manufacturer (which Sweeney is not at liberty to name) to track the contents of 400 tagged items in a shipping container. The container, which departed on Apr. 19 and is slated to arrive overseas on May 4, can be tracked at ODIN's Web site.