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RFID Radio Technology

by Herbert Harris

Overview

RFID Chip

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Radio frequency identification, RFID, is a catchall term for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify people and objects. While this technology has many promising benefits for businesses and manufacturers, it has also caused great alarm for many who believe it can be seriously abused where individual privacy is concerned.
History of RFID Technology

Early RFID history is linked to Harry Stockman who, in 1948, published a paper entitled "Communication by Means of Reflected Power" wherein he outlined the basic concepts that would lead to the development of RFID technology. In 1973 Charles Watson, a former IBM researcher, filed for a patent for a radio-operated door lock which used a "dormant tag" energized by a small electrical current sent to it by a radio transceiver that identified the key to which it was attached. Subsequent technological advances, including research by the U.S. government improved RFID techniques.

RFID Chip in $20 bill

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Early forms of RFID

Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico conducted research and development in RFID technology for uses in tracking livestock, railroad and toll road applications. Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineering professor Dr. Sanjay Sarma and colleague David Brock, while researching robotics in the mid-1990s, used RFID tags in objects to allow them to "identify" themselves to a robot that accessed a database for references related to the object. Along with Kevin Ashton they founded the Auto-ID Center at MIT in 1999.

RFID Chip in Passport

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Modern uses of RFID

There are countless uses for RFID technology. Chips as small as grains of rice can be implanted beneath the skin to track animals. Hospitals are currently using RFID to keep track of patients and to know where doctors and nurses are in real-time. They also use it to track expensive equipment, control access to drugs and to restrict access to certain hospital areas. Retailers use it for real-time inventory updates. Exxon/Mobil uses RFID to allow drivers to purchase gasoline with credit cards by waving a transponder before the pump.

RFID Device

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How RFID works

A scanning antenna/reader emits radio waves that, when sensed by a transponder (passive RIF tag), energizes it and causes it to transmit its information (encoded on a microchip) to the antenna. The reader decodes the information contained in the tag and passes it to a computer for analysis. RFID systems using active tags that have their own power supply increase the distance at which scanning can be accomplished.

Tiny RFID Coil

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Concerns about RFID

While industry extols the many benefits of RFID, there are many who have serious reservations about the potential misuse of the technology. The future of RFID may depend on how these concerns are addressed.