Monday, May 11, 2009
Week 3 - RFID standards
EPC is like UPC(Universal Product Code), it is a globally unique serial number that identifies an item in the supply chain. This allows inquiries to be made about a single instance of an item, wherever it is within the supply chain. Having a little bit of research, the 96-bit EPC is the most prevailing version and contains information about the manufacturer. Due to the detailed informations that EPC can hold, it is central to the RFID compliance initiatives set in motion by many leading retailers.
Electronic product code..Unique identification number
Structure:
All EPC numbers contain a header indentifying the encoding scheme that has been used. EPC encoding schemes frequently contain a serial number which an be used to uniquely identify one object.
- For the EPC Version 1.3 supports:
- General Identifier(GID) GID-96
- Global Trade Item Number(GTIN)SGTIN-96 SGTIN-198
- GS1 Serial Shipping Container Code(SSCC)SSCC-96
- GS1 Global Location Number(GLN), SGLN-96 SGLN-195
- GS1 Global Returnable Asswt Identifier(GRAO) GRAI-96 GRAI-170
- GS1 Global Individual Asset Identifier(GIAI) GIAI-96 GIAI-202
Class 1 Generation 2 UHF Air Interface Protocol Standard "Gen II" also commonly known as Gen II standard, this standard defines the physical and logical requirement for a RFID system operating in the 860 MHz - 960 MHz frequency range. The system comprises Readers and Labels.
EPC global standard network architechture Practical lesson:
We did an experiment this week on the high frequency and low frequency RFID readers. In this experiment, we did the scanning of barcodes, comparing them to using the readers to scan the RFID tags, RFID tags scan much faster. In the experiment, we compared the time difference, it is actually more than 10secs difference in both readers, scanning all the item. We also saw the distance that RFID reader is able to detect and read the item compared to the barcode scanner. RFID reader reads much further depending on whether it has higher frequency or lower. RFID reader can only scan all at once. However, there is 1 thing that it is unable to scan in the experiment. The reader is unable to scan the tag when it is attached to metal. Hence, it can be improved by putting sponge in between them so that it can be detected..
RFID reader low frequency
RFID reader, High frequency 
10:00 PM