Oct 29, 2013A U.S.-based salvage yard is attaching Etiflex's rugged radio frequency identification tags to damaged cars, and is using RFID readers mounted on forklift trucks to track the parts that its workers remove, as well as the vehicles' locations within the yard.
The tags, made via TrazeTag's patented process of encasing RFID inlays in a tough but flexible rubber casing, was designed for the types of rugged environments in which the majority of RFID tags can be the most challenged. One of the company's latest deployments is an example of that kind of rugged environment: a junkyard to which damaged cars are sent to be destroyed, stripped for parts or occasionally sold. For the past eight months, a U.S.-based salvage yard, which has asked to remain unnamed, has been attaching a TrazeTag Long Reading-Range tag to each car's dashboard via adhesive as the vehicles arrive at the yard. The tags, made with an Impinj Monza 4 chip, are interrogated by RFID readers mounted on forklifts, and that action triggers a video camera—also mounted on the vehicle—to record what is occurring. The video data, stored on a cloud-based server, enables the company to know which steps the vehicle has undergone, as well as where it is located.
The TrazeTag is designed for durability, according to Leandro Margulis, TrazeTag's founder. Molded in rubber, the tag can sustain heavy impacts, Margulis reports (see TrazeTag Designs Rubberized RFID Labels for Abusive Environments). Therefore, he says, the clients that are using or plan to use TrazeTag's products are typically in the yard-management, oil and gas, or government and defense sectors. The tags can come with inlays from a variety of high-frequency (HF) and ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) vendors using NXP Semiconductors or Monza 4 chips for UHF, with a read range of up to 36 feet.
The junkyard poses a challenging environment, as the tags are surrounded by metal, and are exposed to extreme temperatures and water. The tag is designed with its rubber encasing to improve readability in the presence of metal (which can interfere with RF transmissions), as well as to protect the chip and antenna from water or other environmental damage. The end user's goal was to make it possible to better track each vehicle from the time it entered the yard until it was destroyed or sold. Most cars remain in the yard in storage before undergoing a scrapping process (if parts are removed to be sold) and ultimately ending up at the crusher, where they are then compacted and recycled. Junkyards typically track which vehicle has arrived and the processes it has been through manually, by writing down vehicle identification numbers (VINs) and recording where the cars are transported and when, via pen and paper.
Keeping track of the vehicles within a large yard is no easy task, since they are often piled on top of each other and are thus often not readily recognizable. What's more, the yards can be quite large.
In the case of the salvage yard using TrazeTag's RFID tags, the goal was to identify each vehicle's location automatically, using a combination of passive RFID and video footage.
When a new vehicle arrives at the yard, workers enter its VIN and other related details into the yard-management software, and apply a TrazeTag Long Reading-Range tag to that car's dashboard. In some cases, the vehicle's interior is protected from the outside environment, while in others, the windshield may be broken or missing entirely. The tag's unique ID is linked to the car's specific VIN.
Once a vehicle is entered into the system, staff members move it into the yard via a forklift truck equipped with an RFID reader mounted on its front end. The interrogator captures the tag's ID number and transmits that data to the hosted server, which then instructs the camera, also mounted on the forklift truck's front end, to begin recording. That recording continues until the car is put down, at which time the reader stops interrogating the tag ID. That video footage can then either be sent to the server via a Wi-Fi connection, or be loaded later via a wired connection. In either case, the video is stored along with the junked vehicle's VIN and RFID number.
Similarly, video footage is obtained every time the forklift moves the vehicle, thereby updating the system with a visual indication not only of what has been done to the car, but also its location within the yard. In this way, when a vehicle is needed, personnel can refer to the video and more quickly locate it, as well as a record of which processes that vehicle has undergone. That data can help to reduce the amount of employee labor, while also ensuring that vehicles do not become misplaced.
According to Margulis, the TrazeTag Long Reading-Range tag is also being used by a pallet company that leases or sells its reusable pallets to product manufacturers. During the past year, he reports, the pallet company (which has asked to remain unnamed) has been attaching a tag to each pallet's exterior, for clients that request RFID tags to enable pallet tracking (thereby aiding the manufacturer in monitoring the products loaded onto those pallets).
Although some companies are already building UHF RFID tags into their reusable pallets, Margulis says, the TrazeTag's advantage is that it can be applied only to pallets when clients require tags, and can be positioned according to a customer's
particular needs. The tags are typically applied in a recessed area on the side of the pallet, he says, attached via two rivets. The recess protects the tag from some impacts, but the rubberization on the tag also protects the inlay inside it. If the company so chooses, the tag can then be removed from one pallet and placed on another.
TrazeTag is currently in discussions with various other companies and agencies interested in rugged tags. "We've been talking to a lot of oil-and-gas and military-defense [contractors]," he states. TrazeTag's tags are presently in deployment at several oil and gas sites.
In the North Sea, for example, the TrazeTag rubberized hanging tag is being used to monitor wire ropes and other equipment at a drill site. The tag is also available as an adhesive version, for assets that have a surface to adhere it to. TrazeTag sells the tag in a variety of colors, in order to make onsite visual identification easier. In addition, a flexible version of the tag, capable of being wrapped around a curved surface, is being used to track gas pipes—customized, in this case, with the word "RFID" printed in large black letters on a yellow background, to make it known that the pipe sections can be tracked via radio frequency identification.
