How Can a Company Ensure That Drugs Are Authentic?

I am doing my thesis under the title "RFID-based Anti-counterfeiting System." Can a business implement RFID tags on products and simulate without having hardware?

—Yirgalem

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Dear Yirgalem,

You could use 2D bar codes on items and scan at every point at which RFID would be scanned. Most smartphones have 2D bar-code reader applications. You could show how placing a tag at the point of manufacture and then scanning every time a drug moves—from production line to warehouse, from warehouse to loading dock, from loading dock to truck, from truck to the back of a pharmacy, and from there to the pharmacy's front—allows a pharmacist to look up the chain of custody and ensure that drugs are legitimate. You could also simulate other scenarios in which drugs are diverted off a truck and sold illegitimately, showing how diverted drugs could be scanned by police, and how their origins could be traced. GS1 has developed some standards around electronic pedigree (see Pedigree Standard), so you should use these as the basis of your project. Good luck!

—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal