The following are news announcements made during the week of Nov. 5.
Magellan Technology’ Releases RFID Products for Document Tracking
Magellan Technology, an Australian manufacturer of 13.56 MHz RFID systems, has unveiled its PJM StackTag system, consisting of tags and interrogators designed for use with document control applications. The system employs Magellan’s Phase Jitter Modulation (PJM) technology, which complies with the ISO/IEC 18000 Part 3 Mode 2 standard, to enable tags to be encoded at a data rate of up to 424 kilobits per second and read at a rate of 106 kilobits per second. PJM StackTag technology, the company claims, can identify, read and write tags even if they are buried at the bottom of a deep stack of documents. According to Magellan, this enables firms to track single-page and other original documents on desks or shelves, or in folders or archive boxes. The PJM anticollision protocol, Magellan indicates, allows users to manage more than 16,000 tagged items, pages or files per reader, at identification speeds of 700 tags per second. The company is offering a range of PJM StackTag labels and dedicated reader products. The MDOCR-2505 Document Tray reader is a PJM RFID interrogator available in a typical office in/out tray form factor. Magellan MARS readers and bookshelf antennas can be fitted to file cabinets or bookshelves, enabling the constant monitoring of all tagged documents and folders in those repositories. The MARS-24 reader can operate up to 24 single or 12 bookshelf antennas used to locate documents and folders on individual shelves of a document cabinet. Finally, Magellan’s MSTRP-5050 tunnel reader can be employed to identify archive boxes containing more than 10,000 RFID-tagged documents. These products are available now.
Gentag, Frank Sammeroff Ltd. Partner to Produce RFID-enabled Skin Patches
Gentag, a Washington, D.C., company developing a technology for turning cell phones into universal RFID interrogators able to read passive RFID tags and wireless sensors, has teamed with Frank Sammeroff Ltd., a Glasgow, U.K., manufacturer of surgical dressings and other health-care products. The duo plans to produce disposable, wash-proof skin patches embedded with RFID tags that can be read by RFID-enabled cell phones or PDAs. The RFID technology will operate at 13.56 MHz and support the ISO 15693 standard. The skin patches could be used to identify patients; a nurse, for instance, could utilize one to automatically document when a patient receives visitors, or to check against an electronic patient file to determine if there are any possible drug interactions or allergies before administering medication. “We feel this technology will help reduce medical errors, especially giving the wrong drug to the wrong patient,” says John Peeters, Gentag’s founder and president. Gentag developed the smart skin-patch technology (see Gentag Foresees Cell Phones as Thermometers, Glucose Readers), which is detailed in U.S. Patent No. 7,148,803, a patent the company co-owns with Motorola that describes the use of personal wireless devices in wireless networks, as well as with RFID and sensors. Gentag and Motorola each retain independent rights on the patent. Sammeroff intends to market the smart skin patches under its own label, while also offering private-label production. The manufacturer says it expects the patches to be sold to hospitals, as well as organizations such as amusement parks, where the skin patches could be used for entrance control, payment services and child identification and location. Prototypes of the patches have already been developed, and Peeters says full production is expected to get underway in the next three or four months.
Intelleflex Announces EU-Compliant RFID Product Availability
Intelleflex, a Santa Clara, Calif., provider of RFID systems for yard management, asset tracking and applications for transportation and logistics, aviation and hospitality, has announced the availability of its line of RFID-enabled battery-assisted passive RFID tags and associated readers and antennas for the European Union (EU). Unveiled at this week’s RFID Journal LIVE! Europe 2007 conference and exhibition in Amsterdam, Intelleflex’s battery-assisted RFID technology is designed to extend the typical range of passive tags to 50 meters, improving read reliability in challenging real-world environments such as metal, liquids and outdoor locations. The extended on-tag memory provides 60 kilobytes of rewriteable storage for such data as asset ID, status and history. The product line will be optimized to operate in the 865-868 MHz frequency range used in Europe. It will also be compliant with European Commission regulations, and undergo emissions testing and certification. Intelleflex’s battery-assisted RFID tags are rugged, compact and designed for a variety of applications. Its multi-protocol RFID readers can interoperate with a range of RFID tags, and can read EPC-compliant passive tags, as well as battery-assisted EPC Class 3 tags. The general-purpose antennas are optimized for Intelleflex’s RFID system. Intelleflex is now taking orders for EU businesses, and expects to begin shipping products in the first quarter of 2008.
Reva Systems Adds Overseas Partners
RFID infrastructure provider Reva Systems has announced the first group of 12 systems integrators in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) to join its partnership program. The partners have established joint service delivery agreements and signed reseller contracts with Reva. New systems integration partners include AIDA Center, LogSystems, Matiq, Meco Group, Mieloo & Alexander, NGB ID, PDS, Rodata Mobile Computing, Sinel Systems, Tagstone, TBN and TETAS. Meco Group, for example, is leveraging Reva’s Tag Acquisition Processor (TAP) servers to implement an item-level tagging and tracking system for Lemmi Fashion that will span countries from Asia to Germany (see Lemmi Fashion Changes Frequency). Reva’s TAP servers are rack-mountable appliances that can be employed to centrally control a network of RFID interrogators. They can also filter and aggregate tag reads before sending the tag data to back-end systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. Reva expects the new partnerships to help expand its footprint in the EMEA regions. Partners will be supported by Reva’s existing sales, business development, marketing and systems engineering team based in Europe.
RSI ID Technologies Releases New Tag Designs
San Diego-based RSI ID Technologies has introduced four RFID inlays with new antenna designs—Corkscrew, Interval, KAT2 and Cube2—that feature NXP Semiconductors‘ next-generation Ucode G2XL and G2XM chips. The G2XM and XL ICs offer scalable EPC numbers up to 240 bits, and the G2XM provides 512 bits of programmable user memory (see NXP Boosts EPC Gen 2 Tag Memory, Performance). All four RSI designs are currently in production.
Axcess Dual Active-Passive RFID Tag Available Now
Axcess International, located in Carollton, Texas, has announced that it is now shipping its Dot chip, which provides dual active-passive capabilities, enabling it to operate as either a passive EPC Gen 2 UHF tag or an active 433 MHz tag. First announced in October 2006, the Dot chip combines a processor, memory and wireless communications into one chip about the size of a single grain of rice. The chip can run for years on a watch battery, the company claims, and can store at least three pages of information in memory (see New Axcess Chip Can Be Active or Operate as Passive Gen 2). The Dot chip is designed to be used in a variety of applications, such as a long-range bar code, an electronic property tag, an automatic building access badge, a vehicle identification tag, an electronic cargo container seal or a wireless sensor transmitter. The first end-user product to use the Dot technology will be in a card-based form factor, so that it can be employed as an ultra-thin tag to identify and track assets, vehicles and workers. According to Axcess, that product will ship in December.