Aug 02, 2006Japanese electronics vendor Omron has announced an EPC Gen 2 UHF RFID interrogator (reader), the first to use the company’s own operating system.
Until now, Omron RFID readers have used an operating system licensed from ThingMagic. To create the new V750 reader, the company says it turned to its own engineers to design a device tuned for high-throughput applications.
The new interrogator, which works only with tags compliant with EPCglobal’s Class 1 Gen 2 standard, adjusts its operation automatically according to tag density—the number of tags within its radio frequency (RF) field. This improves the V750’s ability to read tags quickly in applications where tag density changes frequently.
The V750 supports Omron’s recently announced electronic control antennas (see Omron Developing Smart Antenna), which can detect the direction of tag moving through the read zone. The device also features a mode for item-level tagging. In this mode, the interrogator knows to look for one tag at a time, enabling it to read and write to the tag more quickly since it need not wait for responses from multiple tags.
Up to four monostatic antennas can be connected to the V750, which can vary the power of the RF signal sent to each antenna. This allows users to fine-tune the RF field according to the physical placement of the antenna and its related portal configuration. The V750 also offers a real-time boot function, allowing it to enter a preset mode quickly upon activation. “That’s something that a Linux- or Windows CE-based operating system can not do,” says Arnold.
In October, Omron expects to ship its first V750 model. Made for the U.S. market, this model will operate at the 902-928 MHz UHF frequency band. Versions for the European and Japanese UHF frequency bands (865.6-867.6 MHz and 952-954 MHz, respectively) will ship by year’s end. No pricing has yet been set.
The company will continue to sell its V740 line of multiprotocol UHF EPC readers with ThingMagic’s operating system for applications that need to read EPC Gen 1 tags (Class 0, Class 0+ and Class 1), as well as Gen 2 tags.
