- Metalcraft has nearly doubled the range of its previous on-metal universal tag with a new version aimed at manufacturing sites, storage yards or ports.
- The tag can be equipped with another new feature—a color-protecting print cover to ensure it works both visually and digitally for a decade or more.
At sites where companies are tracking metal assets, in wide areas (such as factories), on-metal tags provide passive UHF RFID traceability—as long as the reader and tag are within about 20 feet of each other. That means tagged metal objects moving through a narrow portal or being read with a handheld reader in a storage yard, can be detected automatically in most cases.
But that read range isn’t always enough. Metalcraft has released its Long Range Universal Tag to provide a 55 foot read range on metal surfaces —a distance which is about twice that of its predecessor Universal RFID Asset Tags.
Along with the Long Range Universal Tag, the company has released a ColorFast option to laminate the printed face of the tag to ensure the color remains true for the typical 10 year life of the tags and the assets in all weather, said Mark Maliszewski, product development engineer.
Metalcraft makes industrial-grade, identification products used in what can be harsh environments. The company launched in 1950 with ID nameplate solutions and introduced RFID into its portfolio in the early 2000s, out of its Mason City, IA, location.
Addressing the Challenges in Industrial Settings
Companies like factories and logistics providers have been employing UHF RAIN RFID technology to track or locate reusable metal assets often used to transport goods such as components in a factory, or containers in which products are shipped from one location to another. They can also go on metal shelving – for instance in a data center.
While RFID use can be challenging in highly metallic environments, companies like Metalcraft offer tags that operate around metal as the read range is often shorter than standard RFID tags that are applied to plastic or cardboard. In standard RFID use, RF waves bounce off metal or are absorbed by it, which reduces the effectiveness of the system.
Applications where the maximum range of on-metal tags is too short includes scenarios such as reading tags on metal containers that are driven through a wide gate or even reading tags on cages stacked inside a container, which is typically 40 feet long.
Long Range Universal
To address this issue, Metalcraft began working on a solution that is now being evaluated by one of its customers, said Aaron Hobert, sales support engineer. “We actually developed it for one of our customers in that space where they wanted longer read range,” said Hobert.
The company was looking for a way to better identify metal rolling baskets the size of gaylords, that contained parts used in the manufacturing process. The containers needed to be readable from a distance, either with fixed or handheld RFID readers.
Challenges exist in other applications as well, such as outdoor warehousing or storage yards, where users wanted to know the identify and location of assets, without getting close to them.
Doubling the Read Range
“With our legacy universal asset product, we were providing a 25 to 30 foot read range rating on that product,” said Maliszewski. The latest tag is slightly larger than the universal asset tag – “but we took a big quantum leap forward in range.”
The long range tag measures 3.125 by 1.375 inches, and is .085 inches thick. That makes it about one-quarter inch longer than the legacy universal asset tag. The foam core remains unchanged from the universal asset and it can similarly stand up to abrasion, moderate solvents and acids, said Maliszewski.
The new tag benefits from the Impinj M 830 RFID chip along with Metalcraft’s new antenna design. Impinj released the M 830 in 2023 to offer lower power consumption, and improved read performance.
With a portal reader the range of Metalcraft’s tag may be as long as 55 feet, but that would reduce to about 40 feet with a handheld reader.
Alternative to Active RFID
The company is now offering its long range tags for evaluation to resellers and systems integrators whose customers are in industrial sectors.
Users who had sometimes opted for active, battery-powered RFID tags to extend the range, may be able to use passive RFID now. In many cases, Maliszewski said “active RFID would be overkill and would just be cost prohibitive.”
However, the price of the long range tag is in keeping with the other universal family tags but several cents more. “The pricing is going to be very compatible with the pricing for the rest of our universal family,” said Hobert.
In the meantime, the other universal tags will continue to be available for those with legacy systems that don’t require the longer range.
Port and Ship-based Use Cases
Company officials see the new long-range product potentially opening up new use cases for RFID. For instance, oil and gas or refinery laydown yards in which metallic objects need to be located could benefit from the technology.
“Even on a ship we foresee some potential possibilities with intermodal container shipping,” Maliszewski said. By applying the tags to metal shipping containers, they could be automatically identified as a vessel pulled in a port.
Such a use case would typically involve a closed-loop shipping system such as a large manufacturer that has facilities in multiple continents and its own port locations where it could identify goods passing through.
“They could set up the readers in ports and this might be a foray [into shipping solutions with RFID],” Maliszewski said.
Laminate for Print Fade Protection
The other recent product that Metalcraft has brought to the market is an option for an over-laminate that provides up to 10 years of print fade protection on products like the long range reversal.
Some tags for instance are color-coded to provide a visual indication of what category of asset, or the company owning it, is. Such tags, when left out in the weather for long periods of time, start to fade. That’s a problem, since they may be on that asset for a decade.
“To create longevity of the colored logo this is an option that we offer on select RFID products and some of the universals,” Maliszewski said, which could include the long-range universal.
The long-range tag would require an oversized face sheet to protect the edges of the foam before the lamination.
“We basically call that variant our oversized universal option,” which is available now, he said.
Learn More: