Automotive Project Shows a Single RFID Tag Can Carry Data Encoded by Multiple Users

After the GM plant unloaded the parts, the empty containers were returned to the Lake Orion Sequencing Center, and the tags were read once more. In a real production environment, Gu says, the product data stored in MB11 memory would be erased once the parts within the rack have been unloaded or removed, and they might also be rewritten with new information—such as the ID number of the trailer transporting the empty racks back to the facility. During the research project, however, participants did not update the data on the RFID tag's MB11 on the empty racks.

Tags used included Alien's Squiggle and TIE inlays, Starport Technologies' Portunus-I and Intermec's IT 65. The Alien ALR 9900 interrogator was supplied by Ohio University, Pyramid Solutions provided a Motorola XR450 reader, and Intermec contributed its own IF61 Enterprise reader, installed at Grupo Antolin's Marlette plant. Ohio University provided software to store and interpret tag data read by the two RFID interrogators at Grupo Antolin's Orion site. Intermec supplied software to read and filter tag data at the Marlette facility.

A GM rack being loaded into a trailer at the Lake Orion Sequencing Center.

The participants also used Intermec's CN3 and IP30 RFID handheld interrogators to show that a tag's MB01 and MB11 memory could be read as needed. Additionally, the researchers utilized the handhelds to change MB11 data on a random basis, in order to demonstrate in-service reprogramming capability.

The researchers indicate their study proves that both of the tag's memory banks (MB01 with EPCglobal-based data, and MB11 with ISO-based data) can be read at very high read rates. All three fixed interrogators read the tags at an observed rate of 100 percent, the group reports. Altogether, 250 racks owned by Grupo Antolin, as well as 50 owned by GM, were tagged and tracked.

Because the readers had approximately a 15-foot read range, Gu says, they often captured stray reads of tags as containers were moved about in the warehouse. Shielding or better antenna placement could have addressed the problem, he notes.