Global computer technology company Intel Corp. and Seattle-based RFID provider Impinj are teaming up to offer EPC ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID-based platforms that systems integrators could build into inventory-management and real-time location solutions for the retail industry.
The platforms feature Intel’s Retail Sensor Platform (RSP)—consisting of a UHF RFID reader and the Intel Retail Gateway, which collects and manages data regarding store inventory—combined with Impinj’s tag chips and ItemSense software. The gateway can also manage data culled from other technologies, such as video analytics, or sensors that measure shoe or shirt fits for customers, and then link that information to RFID read data. Impinj will market the Intel-Impinj systems, though the company has not yet named the release date.
The joint effort is not the first time that Intel and Impinj have worked together. Since its inception, for example, Intel’s RSP has relied on Impinj’s Indy RS2000 Reader SiP (system-in-package) for its RFID component. What’s more, the partnering companies report, Impinj specifies that its ItemSense software be run on Intel’s Core i5 or i7 processors.
Intel first began marketing its RSP system to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in 2015, to make RFID deployments easier for technology providers, such as systems integrators serving the retailer sector (see Intel Unveils RFID System for Retailers).
Intel also sells the RSP product to original design manufacturers (ODMs) such as Impinj, which create their own solutions for use by integrators and retailers, according to Joe Jensen, the VP and general manager of Intel’s Retail Solution Division. Intel’s RFID reader is designed to be wired to an Intel Retail Gateway (which includes Intel’s Quark-based Smart Antennas) that forwards data to a server. In addition, Intel offers its application programming interface (API) to enable integrators to write software to link the collected read data to a user’s software.
Since the end of the first quarter of this year, 62 retailers (most of which have asked to remain unnamed) have been carrying out RFID pilots that use Intel’s RSP. For many of these projects, the RSP RFID reader and gateway have been integrated with other technologies—most often video analytics—so that retailers can use both RFID tag reads and video to better understand how customers interact with products. Some of the 62 retailers, however, are using an Intel Retail Gateway but not the RSP RFID reader. For example, Brooks Brothers is utilizing Intel RealSense sensors to collect body measurements for the custom shirts it sells, and that data is managed by the Intel gateway. Another example is Nordstrom, which is using Volumental‘s Vandra foot scanners to measure the dimensions of a customer’s foot. The foot measurements are forwarded to the Intel Retail Gateway, which then identifies that individual’s shoe size.
In November 2015, Impinj released its ItemSense software (see With ItemSense, Impinj Aims to Simplify ‘Always On’ RFID Deployments), designed to enable Impinj partners and RFID end users to quickly and easily integrate what the company calls “Item Intelligence”—the identity, location and authenticity of everyday items—into existing and new enterprise and consumer applications. Multiple retailers have piloted ItemSense software in conjunction with Impinj’s xArray RFID readers.
Both the xArray with ItemSense and the RSP RFID systems enable integrators to develop solutions that would track tagged products’ locations and movements throughout a store’s sales floor or back room, providing real-time information about where inventory is located and how often it is being handled. However, the xArray reader offers a high level of location granularity, while the RSP reader, though less expensive, provides less location granularity.
Intel has been focusing its research and development efforts on RFID applications beyond using the technology to determine whether an item is in the store. “We’ve put a bunch of R&D into changing how RFID is done,” Jensen says. Intel’s gateway and reader are designed to collect a large amount of data, but to filter and manage that information so that it can then be used to make decisions about how products are being displayed and sold. By pairing RFID reads with video images, for instance, a store could use RSP to identify when a tagged product is moved, as well as its location, and utilize video analytics to compare the RFID data with video footage, in order to determine whether customers are actually taking the item off a rack or engaging with it.
“We’ve known about Intel’s efforts for a while,” says Larry Arnstein, Impinj’s business development VP. “It became clear that there was a lot of opportunity to collaborate. “The Retail Sensor Platform is highly complementary with our products.” For instance, the RSP gateway could bring non-RFID sensor data to an RFID-based real-time location system (such as the xArray) that uses ItemSense software. Conversely, Arnstein describes ItemSense as a platform on which solutions could be built, and that include the RSP reader and gateway, depending on a user’s particular needs. The xArray and RSP RFID readers, Arnstein notes, “are two different devices with different purposes.” The xArray, he explains, is a purely UHF RFID reader that can identify a tag’s location in a specific space within a few feet, depending on reader density. The RSP reader focuses on employing the gateway to manage read data, and to potentially pair that information with other data sources, such as video.
Intel, Arnstein says, “has been driving awareness, getting ecosystems to bring products to the market.”
Impinj, he adds, has just entered into conversations with several potential partners and customers that will build RTLS solutions based on the Intel and Impinj collaborated technologies. According to Impinj, the solutions will include omnichannel fulfillment, back and front store fulfillment, and item intelligence, among other use cases. “I think this is a signal to the industry that we’ve reached the right time to offer these solutions,” Arnstein states.
One of the 62 retailers piloting the Retail Sensor Platform is Levi Strauss & Co., which initially was testing the platform at its Levi’s Plaza store in San Francisco, as well as at two other stores, and is now preparing for a larger-scale pilot involving other stores that will link RFID and video data using software provided by RFID technology company Smartrac. The jeans retailer declined to discuss the pilot’s details.
“The retail business today has a very short window,” Jensen says, explaining that a retailer has only a short amount of time to sell a product before marking it down, and then removing that item from its sales floor and shipping it off to a discount store or elsewhere. One sports apparel retailer, he says, told him that it didn’t have any products at its store that were more than four weeks old. Understanding, in real time, how customers interact with each product can thus enable the retailer to respond quickly to problems, such as an item not gaining much interest.