Wireless and Emerging Technologies

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Wireless and Emerging Technologies
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Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

• Small identification tags that can be used to
  track items
• Cars, clothes, CDs, livestock, shipping crates,
  etc.
• Consists of three parts
• Antenna (or coil)
• Transceiver (with a decoder)
• Transponder (RF tag) with unique electronic
  information

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How does RFID work?

• The antenna emits radio signals to activate RF
  tag
• Allows for either reading or writing to tag
• Antennae come in variety of shapes
• Door frames
• Toll booths
• Handheld devices
• Antenna often packages with a receiver and
  decoder to become a reader (or, interrogator)
• Readers have range of 1 inch to approximately 100
  feet
• Depends on power output and frequency

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RFID Tags (transponder)

• Tag contains an integrated circuit that contains
  data
• When tag passes through the electromagnetic field
  of an interrogator
• Detects the readers activation signal
• Passes data through to host computer for
  processing
• Does not require line-of-sight

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Shapes and Sizes

• Animal tracking small as a pencil lead in
  diameter and half inch long (sub-dermal
  insertion)
• Screw-shaped to identify trees or wooden objects
• Credit card sized for access applications
• Hard plastic, for merchandise (anti-theft)
• 5 by 4 by 2 heavy duty tags for crates and
  shipping containers

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Types of RFID Tags

• Active or passive
• Active
• Tag has own battery
• Data can be rewritten
• Tag memory varies can go up to 1MB
• Longer read range
• Limited life (sometimes up to 10 years)
• Passive
• No battery receive power from reader
• Lighter, less expensive, unlimited life
• Hold 32-128 bits of data
• Data cannot be modified, only read

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Advantages of RFID tags

• Non-contact
• No line-of-sight-required
• Can be read in hostile conditions
• Snow, ice, fog, dust, paint, grime
• Not true for normal barcodes
• Quick response time (lt100 milliseconds)

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Common uses of RFID

• Car immobilizer in key
• Toll collection
• Inventory control
• Maintenance data
• Building security
• Library systems

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RFID in Cellphones

• ABI Research predicts that 50 of all cellphones
  will have RFID tags by 2009.
• Will use Near Field Communications to buy
  products or communicate with their cellphone
• A type of P2P communication
• Buy a movie ticket by simply holding your phone
  near a movie poster.

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Concerns

• Price
• Currently 50 cents to several dollars
• Coming down to 10 cents (maybe even 5 cents in
  lots of 10 billion)
• Privacy
• Can you be tracked? No
• Can they be read by satellite? No
• Can government track you? Cost too high
• Health
• Radiation? Passive devices reflect signals and do
  not add

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MEMS and nanotechnology

• Micro-electro-mechanical systems

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Nanotechnology

• The principles of physics, as far as I can see,
  do not speak against the possibility of
  maneuvering things atom by atom."
• Richard Feynman, 1959

http//www.g4techtv.com/techtvvault/features/34379
/The_Incredible_Shrinking_Science.html