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IBI has formed strategic relationships with several predominant manufacturers and suppliers of RFID device technology to provide our customers with premium customized and packaged solutions for their unique RFID and Automated Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) requirements. Paired with our expertise in custom software development, IBI can innovate and integrate your corporate RFID objectives. Our RFID systems are designed for and target the major applied markets of health, business and manufacturing. As a result of our ability to incorporate premium RFID device hardware with customized and COTS applications, IBI’s engineers and RFID Solutions team can create a concept-to-completion RFID system to meet your corporate demands while reducing cost margins and promoting increased productivity.
RFID Economics
In recent research conducted by Marketstrat, the worldwide market for RFID was approximately $1.5 billion in 2004 and projected to reach $2 billion by the end of fiscal 2006. RFID hardware components such as readers, tags and circuitry accounted for 72% of the market, followed by services (19%) and software applications (9%). It is also anticipated that global revenues for RFID hardware will grow at a rate of 28% annually through the year 2009. While the next three years will find rapid growth within the RFID industry, stabilization will occur thereafter to reveal a steady market for industry RFID solutions. Another survey released by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, EPC Group Ltd. and Retail Systems Alert Group Inc. in 2004 indicated that 70% of large companies with at least $5 billion in annual sales will begin RFID project timelines and work orders within the next 18 months, and 25% of those have spent between $500,000 and $10 million on RFID adoption in 2004. IBI comprehends the tremendous significance and impact that RFID technology and its application has within target markets and the global economy, as a whole.
RFID Primer
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) refers to an applied technology that uses radio frequency or waves to track and identify an object. A basic RFID system is composed of a tag or transponder and a reader or interrogator. RFID technology utilizes radio wave communication to collect remote information stored within the target tag. Type, content and size of data written to and read from an RFID tag can range from bytes to kilobytes with unlimited application outputs. The physical collection of RFID information from this tag-reader interface usually occurs through one of two methods; the use of a hand-held device with human intervention or automatic management through a host server system. RFID device tags are broadly classified into two categories according to their source of activation power: Active or Passive. An Active RFID tag employs a portable power source, usually in the form of a battery, which energizes the transmitter component of the tag circuitry for signal broadcasting to the corresponding reader. In contrast, a Passive RFID doesn’t possess a dedicated power supply rather; relies on power derived from the electromagnetic waves transmitted from the reader. The reader creates inducted current in the passive tag circuitry to create data transmission through the Passive tag’s antenna. With radio frequency bandwidths that operate discretely from 30 kHz to 2.4 GHz, RFID technology can serve a wide range of application, distance and financial requirements.
As a result of the wide variety of RFID hardware, their advantages and limitations must be clearly understood prior to any corporate RFID venture. RFID tags or transponders operate within discrete frequency bandwidths with or without power requirements. Since the majority of RFID systems operate and are designed within the publicly available, unlicensed radio frequencies, significant financial benefits are sustained. The unlicensed radio frequencies most commonly used for deployment of RFID systems fall within the following assignments:
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Low Frequency (LF) 125/134.2 KHz |
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High Frequency (HF) 13.56 MHz |
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Ultra High Frequency (UHF) (including the non-cellular bandwidths of 869 and 915 MHz) |
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Microwave at 2450 MHz or 2.45 GHz. |
Some of the salient properties for the majority of RFID tags can be summarized in the table below:
RFID TAG Properties
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