Are There RFID Standards for Medical Environments?

Does either the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or EPCglobal specify that a particular type of RFID technology be used within hospital settings? —Paul ——— Dear Paul, There is no FDA requirement for the use of high-frequency (HF) or ultrahigh-frequency (UHF)...

Which Countries Have Used RFID to Monitor Railway Cars?

Are there any nations that have utilized the technology for this particular application? —Name withheld ——— A number of countries have done this, and the United States and Canada were among the first. In the 1990s, most North American railway tracks were equipped with...

Can an RFID System Alert Me if Tagged Items Are Not Read?

Would it be possible, when continuously interrogating a group of ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) tags within a given space, to know if a particular tag was missing? —Name withheld ——— If you have 50 tagged objects on a shelf, and a shelf reader is constantly reading all of...

Has RFID Been Used to Track People in Urban Spaces?

In addition, has the technology been utilized for analyzing the use of buildings? —Name withheld ——— To answer this question, I turned to Paul Prince, RFID Journal’s executive editor, who assigns all of our news stories. Paul points out that many real-time...

How Can Passive RFID Tags Be Deactivated?

Please explain how this can be accomplished. —Name withheld ——— It depends on the type of tag being used. Passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID transponders that employ the EPC Gen 2 air-interface protocol are required to have a kill command, enabling a user to...