Would It Be Possible to Read Thousands of Tags Simultaneously?

I am conducting a small project on RFID and I would like to know how many tags can be scanned by a reader, as I need to scan a maximum of 3,000 tags at a time. If that is not possible, how can I increase the maximum scanning amount? What would be the drawbacks if I were to place a group of RFID tags in a single location? And what would happen if there were obstacles between the reader and the tags?

—Harshavardhana

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Harshavardhana,

An RFID reader can only read a single tag at a time. However, it can read tags very quickly, so it appears that many tags are being interrogated simultaneously. Passive UHF RFID readers can capture serial numbers from as many as 700 tags per second under ideal conditions—the tags cannot be densely packed, be placed on materials that would detune the antennas, be subject to inference, and so on.

When you say you want to read 3,000 tags “at a time,” what does that mean? Do you need to read all of the tags in one second, or in 10 seconds? If it’s the latter, you could probably set up a reader to interrogate all of the tags within that span of time. If you need to read 3,000 tags in one second, the only way to do it would be to set up multiple readers and have each read a specific segment of the tag population. Again, the tags would need to be loosely packed, not block one another and not be located around a lot of metal. I hope this helps you.

Yours,
Mark Roberti
Founder and Editor
RFID Journal