At NASCAR Hall of Fame, RFID Fuels Excitement

Electrosonic, an international audio-visual company specializing in AV systems integration and services, spent 18 months designing and building the system, which employs RFID hardware complying with the ISO 14443B RFID standard for passive HF tags. Originally, RFID Inc., a Colorado-based RFID systems provider, had designed a 125 kHz low-frequency (LF) reader for Electrosonic to install, because Ralph Appelbaum Associates required that the application for the 75 kiosks have a reader mounted on or near metal. The 125KHz system met the required read range and did perform favorably in tests. But in the end, the project leaders decided that it was best to adopt a 13.56Mhz solution that would be compatible with Ticketmaster's ticketing/e-commerce solution.

Ticketmaster, also involved in the project, provided RFID-enabled point-of-sale (POS) payment devices based on the ISO 14443B RFID standard, to process purchases made with cash, as well as RFID-enabled credit and debit cards, such as those containing Visa payWave or MasterCard PayPass RFID chips. Ticketmaster controls purchases through the Hall of Fame's box office, and wanted to use the RFID-enabled POS readers to activate the "hard cards."

Having the RFID-enabled POS devices use the same sort of RFID technology employed by the Hall of Fame's turnstiles and exhibits would provide complete integration throughout the facility. Therefore, RFID Inc. went back to the drawing board to develop an HF reader based on Ticketmaster's specifications, along with a high-gain antenna.

There were a variety of challenges, says James Heurich, RFID Inc.'s president. For example, he explains, the USB repeaters that extend power to RFID readers across a longer distance didn't work correctly; the repeaters made the readers lock up.

The exhibit's designers had very specific requirements regarding how they thought visitors should place the card on the kiosk screen so that it could be read, says Bryan Abelowitz, Electrosonic's sales engineer. Ralph Appelbaum Associates wanted visitors to place the entire card on the screen, but had to settle for half off and half on, due to technical challenges involving the readers' inability to identify cards in the metal kiosks.

The readability issue required the team to develop a Plexiglas piece for the card to sit upon. This allowed Ralph Appelbaum Associates to successfully create the unique, high-tech customizable experience for visitors that it had hoped to achieve.