RFID technology has been in development since the 1960s. Early uses included transportation payment systems and item tracking. RFID works by using radio waves to transmit signals between a reader and tag. Tags can be passive, needing only the reader's signal for power, or active/semi-passive with their own power source. While offering advantages over barcodes like not requiring line of sight, RFID also faces challenges like tag orientation, multiple readers interfering, differing standards, and privacy concerns. As costs decrease and software improves, RFID is positioned to greatly impact supply chain management and other areas.

1. RFID: OPPORTUNITIES and
CHALLENGES
Yize Chen

2. History
• In 1969, Mario Cardullo presented a RFID
business plan to investors. The application areas
include:
- Transportation: automotive vehicle identification,
automatic toll system, electronic license plate, …
- Banking: electronic check book, electronic credit card
- Security: personnel identification, automatic gates
- Medical: identification, patient history

3. History
• In 1971, Mario Cardullo built a first passive
device and demonstrated it to potential users.
• In 1973, Mario Cardullo invented the first true
modern RFID system with his U.S patent
3,713,148

4. History
• In 1973, Steven Depp, Alfred Koelle and Robert
Freyman demonstrated early RFID tags at the
Los Alamos National Laboratory.
- The portable systems, both passive and semipassive, detected the modulated reflect power
and operated at 915 MHz.
- This technique is used by majority of today’s
RFID tags.

5. Operating Mechanism
• A RFID system is composed of readers
and tags.
- Readers send out signals that provid
power for a passive tag.
- A tag captures the signals from a reader to
generate its own power, and send back an
unique digital ID

6. Operating Mechanism
• There are two fundamentally different
RFID design approaches:
• Near-field RFID: based on magnetic
induction
- working distance is inversely proportional
to the frequency(d = c/2πf).
- Works well at low frequency.

7. Operating Mechanism
Figure 1. Near-field power/communication mechanism for RFID tags
operating at less that 100 MHz. [1]

8. Operating Mechanism
• Far-field RFID: based on electromagnetic
wave capture
- Worked on higher frequency greater than
100 MHz.
- Higher data transfer rate.

9. Operating Mechanism
Figure 2. Far-field power/communication mechanism for RFID tags operating
at greater that 100 MHz. [1]

10. Current Users
• Passports
- In 1998, the first RFID passports were issued by
Malaysia.
-- personal information.
-- travel history: time, date, and place.
- In 2006, RFID tags were included in new US
passports.
-- the same information as on the passport.
-- digital picture of the owner.

11. Current Users
• Transportation Payments
- In 1999, the SmarTrip card was introduced for
urban mass-transit system in the Washington
D.C.
- In 1995, The RFID passes were used for public
transport systems throughout Europe.
- In 1997, the Octopus Card was used for mass
transit payment in Hong Kong
- The EZ-Link cards are used for bus’ and train’s
toll system in Singapore.

12. Current Users
• Libraries
- Singapore was one of the first to introduce
RFID in libraries.
- Rockefeller University in New York is the
first academic library in the United States
to utilize this technology.
- Farmington Community Library in
Michigan is the first public institution.

13. Opportunity
• Barcode
- There are five billion bar codes being
scanned every day.
- It becomes an essential part of modern
life.

14. Opportunity
• RFID’s advantages over the barcode
- Combines ID recognition with supply chain
management applications.
- Unique code.

15. Challenges
• Orientation
- The alignment between reader’s and tag’s
antenna is critical for an effective
communication.
• Solution
- multiple readers in different angles
- one reader with many antennas (cost
effective)

16. Challenge
• Reader Coordination
- more than one reader operates in a close
range, signal “collision” could happen that
generate noisy data.
• Solution
- Define a protocol to allow these systems to
share the available bandwidth.
- Enhanced signal processing to intelligently
filter out noise.

17. Challenges
• Multiple Standards
- Several frequencies and standards have
been used for current RFID.
• Solution
- the RFID reader can be built for multiple
standards

18. Challenges
• Manufacturing Costs
- Current tag’s manufacturing costs are still
too high
• Solution
- Technological innovations and new
process development will reduce the
manufacturing cost.

19. Challenges
•
•
-
Privacy and Consumer Concerns
Leaking personal information
Tracking the consumer’s activities.
Solution
Kill function: disable the tag after
purchases.
- Smart tags: rewritable memory in the tag
circuit.

20. Conclusion
• The technical issues mentioned above will
be resolved as more R&D is spent in this
field.
• The next major barrier is software system.
Powerful software system is needed to do
sophisticated real-time data processing.
• With advances in all these fields, RFID will
one day significantly change our modern
life.