The following are news announcements made during the past week by the following organizations:
Zebra Technologies, Motorola Solutions;
PDC Healthcare, MEPS Real-Time;
EPC Solutions Taiwan, Farsens;
Tageos, Round Rock Research;
M2M Spectrum Networks, GlobeRanger; and
North Carolina State University.
Zebra Technologies Completes Acquisition of Motorola Solutions’ RFID Business
Zebra Technologies and Motorola Solutions have announced that Zebra has completed the acquisition of Motorola Solutions’ enterprise division, including its RFID product line, for $3.45 billion in cash. First announced in April 2014 (see Zebra Buys Motorola Solutions’ Enterprise Business), the acquisition was funded with $200 million of cash on hand and $3.25 billion in new debt, according to the two companies.
As part of the sale, approximately 4,500 Motorola Solutions employees from locations throughout the world will transfer to Zebra. All of Motorola Solutions’ RFID products will eventually be rebranded as Zebra products, according to a Zebra spokesperson, with the changes taking full effect in 2015. For the time being, in order to obtain information about Zebra’s newly acquired RFID product line, customers will need to visit Motorola Solutions’ RFID product website. Zebra is working on phased updates to integrate all of Motorola Solutions’ RFID products into Zebra’s website, the company spokesperson reports. These updates are currently in process, and are expected to be completed sometime during the next few months.
Zebra reports that the acquisition expands and strengthens its product portfolio, geographic reach, go-to-market channels and industries served. The combined organization has about 20,000 channel partners within more than 100 countries, and approximately 4,300 U.S. and international patents issued or pending.
“This transformative acquisition creates one company with unparalleled capabilities and leading global brands in our industry,” said Anders Gustafsson, Zebra’s CEO, in a prepared statement, adding that the deal positions Zebra in a better position to provide businesses with solutions and services that can help them achieve greater visibility for improved enterprise asset intelligence. This, he explained, will enable the company to provide “the building blocks of Internet of Things solutions, as customers worldwide increasingly take advantage of data analytics and mobility to improve business performance.”
PDC Healthcare Partners With MEPS Real-Time to Sell Intelliguard System
PDC Healthcare, a provider of patient identification and safety solutions that include wristbands, labels, medical records and imaging systems, has announced a reseller agreement with RFID solutions provider MEPS Real-Time to market MEPs Real-Time’s Intelliguard Kit and Tray Management System in Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Georgia and Florida.
The Intelliguard system is an RFID-based drug-management solution that employs standard EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) passive RFID tags and readers. These include a tabletop reader for commissioning a tag attached to each drug’s packaging, as well as RFID-enabled drug-dispensing cabinets and bedside patient trays, to automate medication inventory management and replenishment. The system is designed to help hospital pharmacies improve workflow efficiencies and patient safety, the two companies report, by automating kit and tray replenishment tasks. It also helps reduce inventory costs and required work times, the firms note. When pharmacy personnel load the Intelliguard workstation with kits, trays, bags or tackle boxes that are returned for reprocessing, the system automatically scans medications (more than 150 medications can be scanned simultaneously) in order to identify specific items and quantities for replenishment, expired and soon-to-expire medications, and recalls. The Intelliguard Kit and Tray Management System offers a variety of workstation form-factor sizes to fit all pharmacies, and uses what the company claims is the industry’s smallest RFID smart tag to track critical medication data, including the National Drug Code (NDC), expiration date and lot number. Several health-care providers, including San Diego’s Rady Children’s Hospital, are using the system to manage medications (see Rady Children’s Hospital Tracks Anesthetic Drugs Via RFID).
“The Intelliguard Kit and Tray Management System perfectly aligns with PDC Healthcare’s focus on solutions for critical patient safety and operational efficiencies,” said John Park, PDC’s VP of marketing, research and development, in a prepared statement. “This system is a perfect example of how ‘smart’ identification solutions can help our customers reach their medication safety and efficiency goals simultaneously.”
EPC Solutions Taiwan Adds Farsens RFID Sensors to Data Center Solution
EPC Solutions Taiwan has announced its new passive RFID Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solution that includes Farsens‘ battery-free, ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID sensor tags to provide on-demand information regarding asset temperature, humidity and air pressure within data centers.
EPC Solutions had already been offering a DCIM solution based on RFID tags that provided inventory control and process automation. With the addition of Farsens’ RFID sensor tags, EPC Solutions Taiwan’s DCIM solution can provide temperature, pressure and humidity readings, as well as trigger responses based on a set of real-time control parameters. In the event that the system detects abnormal parameters, EPC Solutions Taiwan reports, in it immediately starts the backup facility and sends alert notification messages and records related to maintenance and operation personnel, or to any other related processing units. The solution implements three temperature-humidity sensor tags per rack to control environmental conditions at three different heights, according to Mikel Choperena, Farsens’ product development manager. An RFID reader is placed in the rack and a flexible cable antenna is laid out to read all RFID standard tags, along with RFID sensor tags. In addition to providing temperature, humidity and pressure monitoring of the environment on a real-time basis, it also provides asset inventory status and location.
DCIM solutions are becoming increasingly important, according to Edward Sung, EPC Solutions Taiwan’s VP, because processing needs and power-hungry equipment have made the power bill one of the primary costs of running a data center. Increased operating expenses can exceed a server’s hardware cost during its operational lifespan, he says. With an estimation of a 1 percent energy saving for each degree that an air conditioner’s temperature is raised, being able to control temperature in real time has a very significant impact on an energy budget.
Tageos Signs RFID Licensing Agreement With Round Rock Research
French RFID label manufacturer Tageos has announced that it has entered into a patent licensing agreement with Round Rock Research LLC for RFID tags and labels. This agreement allows Tageos to provide RFID labels and tags to suppliers and end users, including retailers, brand owners and partners within the United States and worldwide.
The licensing agreement follows numerous, similar agreements between Round Rock and a variety of RFID vendors (see Round Rock Completes Licensing Deals With Majority of RFID Vendors and Round Rock Signs Sign Licensing Agreements With Impinj, Tyco, Technology Solutions UK Ltd.).
According to Tageos, the licensing agreement strengthens its position to support the adoption of ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID at the item level, particularly for apparel retailers and brands. “This agreement, along with our recent-won deals with European leaders in luxury and retail apparel sectors, will allow Tageos to accelerate its development in the U.S. and support RFID adoption,” said Matthieu Picon, Tageos’ co-founder and CEO, in a prepared statement. “Our customers will be able to benefit from our lower-cost 100 percent paper-based RFID labels, ensuring them the opportunity to continue to deploy RFID solutions while reducing their RFID budget.”
M2M Spectrum Networks, GlobeRanger Prepare Pilot Project With Texan Sheriff Office
M2M Spectrum Networks and GlobeRanger have announced a pilot project involving the Val Verde County Sheriff Office in Texas, to electronically track the law-enforcement agency’s vehicles, officers and assets.
The pilot will leverage a machine-to-machine (M2M) communications network that M2M Spectrum Networks announced in April 2014 (see M2M Spectrum Launches Nationwide Wireless Machine-to-Machine Network), and is designed to enable a variety of electronic devices, including RFID systems, to send data to a server without requiring a cellular or Wi-Fi connection (see M2M Spectrum Launches Nationwide Wireless Machine-to-Machine Network). GlobeRanger was part of the April announcement, providing its iMotion Edgeware platform to link RFID data to the M2M network. The iMotion platform provides a software infrastructure that connects the physical world of automated data collection with enterprise software systems, and will be used during the pilot with the sheriff’s office.
The pilot installation will include M2M radios hung from existing county communications towers, and from towers that M2M has leased, as well as M2M radios mounted in sheriffs’ vehicles. According to George Brody, GlobeRanger’s CEO, the radios will receive data that RFID readers cull from tags on assets, and those radios will share the data with the radios on the towers. The RFID equipment, which is still being selected, will be similar to that used by Texas’ Richardson Police Department (RPD), which is employing a GlobeRanger RFID-enabled asset-tracking solution (see RFID Gives Richardson, Tex., Officers More Time for Police Work). The Val Verde County pilot will begin next month, and is expected to be taken live within 60 days, according to an M2M spokesperson. Recently approved by county commissioners, the pilot is slated to last at least 18 months, and will be conducted at no cost to the county.
NC State Profession Studying Ways to Reduce Cost of RFID Chips
North Carolina State University has announced that Paul Franzon, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the college, has been awarded $445,713 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct research on AC-powered digital circuits and ways to reduce the cost of RFID chips. The research is exploring ways in which to eliminate most of the circuitry required for managing the recovered power on a chip, which has the potential to reduce chip cost by about one-third, the university reports.
At the core of Franzon’s research proposal is a new circuit structure (which works with EPC Gen 2 RFID frequencies in the 860 to 960 MHz range) that permits digital and some analog operations to be performed from an AC, rather than DC, power supply. Typically, RFID generally requires that 25 percent to 33 percent of the circuit area be given over to RF-DC power conversion, and provides for conversion efficiencies in the 25 percent to 50 percent range. In comparison, the university explains, the proposed circuit structure would enable RFID chips to be built with almost no conversion overhead, and with very high conversion efficiency.
While the proposed innovation would not lead to a 2-cent tag, NC State reports, it has the potential to reduce the silicon tag area by around 25 percent—which, in turn, leads to a tag cost reduction of 10 percent. Another variant of this technology permits tags to operate at high efficiency, and thus low RF or magnetic power levels. As well as investigating low-cost and low-power operation, Franzon will consider this technology’s potential to be an RFID sensor suited for cold-food chain applications. The NSF award will run from Aug. 1, 2014, to July 31, 2017.