RFID – the next wave in ICT

Dr. Ray Huetter

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General Goals of Automation

• Have machines perform “undignified” roles; Execute repetitive/boring/dangerous tasks

• Amplify creative artistic/scientific skills;Support human endeavor

• Improve standard of living for everyone;Ensure well-being and safety, not to deskill

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What is RFID?• Form of automation• Stands for “Radio Frequency Identification”• A radio-based technology used to automatically

identify and track physical things– Grocery items in a retail store– Parts, sub-assemblies in complex machines– Tray of surgical equipment in an operating theatre

• Commercial objectives of RFID are that of automation– Reduce errors, improve efficiency– Increase production, promote collaboration– Enhance user/customer experience

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ComputerSystem

“number please”

1,2,3,…lunch?...

ComputerSystem

Auto-IdTechnology

Begin with Humans as Bottlenecks

Compare:rate & accuracy

90% of a check-out operatorsjob is to locate thebarcode on items

Automatically, accurately and rapidly detect physical objects in physical space

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Tiers of Commercial Drivers1. Eliminate situations where humans are bottlenecks in

order to improve efficiency and productivity (do more with less)

– Humans are comparatively expensive (time, $, policy, law), sensitive and error prone entities

2. Shift systems closer towards continuous real-time– Sensor technology continuously monitors current state and

change of assets– Systems hold and process a dynamic reflection of reality– Shift

From: using historical information to make decisions about the future; longer decision cycle times

To: using current information to continuously make decision about now; shorter decision cycle times

3. Offer improved or different services and experiences to users/customers

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Example Retail Problems$US40B is lost every year due to bad data• 30% of item data in retail catalogs is incorrect• Each error brings with it a cost of $60 to $80• Fixing those errors is a laborious manual

process, taking on average 25 minutes per SKU per year

• 60% of all invoices have errors• Invoice reconciliation can cost between $40 and

$400Dwain Farley, CEO

Enterprise Information Systems

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Market is Demanding RFID• As a solution to the problems/opportunities• Why have these problems occurred?

– Consequence of automation Manufacturing volumes/variety (e.g. food) and device

complexity (e.g. cars) has increased substantially over the last four decades

Some construction and maintenance processes are extremely complex Think about the number of parts and the maintenance life-cycle

of all the parts on airplanes

– Barcodes (current auto-id tech.) difficult in practice One read per (say) three seconds Unreliable, requires human operator (in demeaning role)

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RFID Basics• Two parts: Tag and Reader• Tag is a radio-enabled chip

– Tag is an antennae and a special-purpose processor– Tag is on an physical item e.g. clothing

• Reader emits radio signal (e.g. UHF 860-960MHz)

– Tag uses power in the radio wave– Chirps back with unique id (& maybe other data)– Does not require line-of-sight– Event is sent to system for processing and storage

BizEvt: Reader X (=Context Y), detected Tag Z, Time T

• Concept emerged in the 1940’s– “Squawk” used to identify friend/foe aircraft in WW2– Steadily growing industry since 1970’s

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RFID Form Factors• Two basic forms

– Passive: tag is powered by radio wave– Active: tag is powered by a battery

• Chip itself is small and can be very thin– Typically about the size of a grain of sand– 1/10th thickness of paper (Hitachi)

• Additional features– Sensors which detect temperature, humidity,

ultra-violet, shock etc.– Chip has rewritable memory

Used as a distributed mobile database medium 4kbit is becoming common

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Your new checkout chick…

http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1777/1/1/

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Global Numbering is the Key• EPCglobal proposed a standard 96+ bit

numbering scheme to uniquely identify tags– Extension to barcode UPC (Universal Product Code)– Recently adopted as ISO/IEC 18000-6 Type C

• Electronic Product Code (EPC) has four fields– Header (version and structure; future-proof)– Manager Number (manufacturer; 256M)– Object Class (type of product; 16M)– Serial number (68B)– EPC assigned by an Object Naming Service (ONS)

• May lead to “number reorientation”– Systems are altered to use common part numbering– Akin to Dewey Decimal System for books

Melvin Dewey circa 1870

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Objectives of Global Numbering• Use the same number to uniquely identify the

same physical object in all systems– “A rose by any other name maybe misunderstood”

• Simplifies inter-system/inter-organization exchange– Eliminates overhead of transformations and therefore

a systemic source of error

• Supports supply-chain collaboration– Organizations can share actionable operational

information, potentially in real-time, with their partners

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Supply-Chain Visibility• Enable parties to peer into each others

processes (e.g. manufacturing and shipping)– Standardized information with respect to EPC object

numbering can be collected and shared as it happens

• Continuous real-time optimization• Monitor and handle exceptions• Potential for significant ROI• Reduce out of stock situations• “Cold-chain” often used to describe the supply-

chain for food and other sensitive products• Major driver of RFID

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EPCglobalNetwork

RFID Tag

Tag Protocol UHF Gen2

RFID Reader

Read Protocol

ReaderManagement

ReaderManagement

Interface

Filerting & Collection(“RFID Middleware”)

Filtering & Collection (ALE)Interface

EPCIS CapturingApplication

EPCIS Capture Interface

EPCISRepository

EPCIS Query Interface

EPCIS AccessingApplication

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RFID Now• Mandates from Wal-Mart, US DoD, US FDA,…

– Price has fallen enough, ~15- cent per tag in large volumes

– Newest tags are read/write 128+ bytes– Readers are $2,500- each, reading 1,000+ tags/sec

• Standards via EPCglobal (EPC Gen 2)– Radio frequencies, operational & environment issues– Global numbering scheme to uniquely identify items

• Significant fundamental R&D– Looks/feels like microprocessor industry of 1970’s– Little/piecemeal software, no complete systems

EPCIS standard yet to be ratified (soon)– Credit card blanks with embedded tags

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Current RFID Market• Last year

– ~35K readers were sold

• This year– ~500M EPC Gen 2 tags likely to be sold

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RFID Trends• Heading towards greater ubiquity

– More tags, readers and RFID enabled systems

• Heading towards item-level tagging– Each physical item has an RFID tag on it– Wal-Mart & US DoD started pilot tests on palettes,

then boxes, now individual items

• Heading towards rewritable tags– Each tag has flash-like memory

Applications read and then write-back to tag

– E.g. Boeing wants 64KB tags for Dreamliner Does this sound like an 1970’s Intel 8080?

• Heading towards more functionality on tag

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Possible RFID Future• Internet delivered ubiquitous global network

– RFID adds physical world sensors to network

• Shift to real-time, maximally automated, physical + virtual systems– Monitor, control corporate positions in real-time, react

in real-time, transact in real-time

• Tag evolves into microprocessor– Microprocessor on everything– Connected (partially) via radio mesh networks– Maybe cost effective to only tag 80% of items when

viewed per item, but viewed holistically maybe ineffective not to tag the remaining 20%

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A Possible View of the Numbers

10^1610 QuadrillionEvents

10^1310 TrillionTags

10^1010 BillionPeople

In ten years (2016):1 trillion new tags per year100 trillion events per year

@1,000 items/person

@1,000 events/item

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A Possible View of the Numbers

10^1610 QuadrillionEvents

10^1310 TrillionTags

10^1010 BillionPeople

10^710 MillionServers

In ten years (2016):1 trillion new tags per year100 trillion events per year

databases ???

1,000 items/person

1,000 events/item

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Current RFID Problems• Privacy

– Policy/legislation is the answer & being worked on• Price of tag

– Production volumes and research will bring this down even more

• Reader performance– Substantial research into accurately reading items in

sub-optimal / harsh environments– Impinj has shown item-level tagging with UHF Gen2

Includes liquids and metals

• System performance– Response time – Data volume (event and query)

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RFID enters Commercial Computing

1950’s Commercial Computing

1950’s RFID

Merge Speed

•Palette•Box•Item

•Batched•Real-time

Circa 2002

•Summary•Detail

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RFID Alternatives?• There maybe any number of alternatives to

RFID• One possible alternate is RuBee

– IEEE 1902.1 standard– Magnetic field not radio wave– Active transceiver

RFID is passive or active transponder

• Can be used for item-level tagging in harsh environments

• Very complementary to RFID– Would still be EPC based– Would still have similar current problems

Privacy, price, performance etc.

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Possibility Impact of Wave• Skill obsolesce

– E.g. check-out operator becomes redundant

• Change in business processes – E.g. manual stock take becomes obsolete

• Change in user experience– E.g. walk straight out with trolley, receipt gets emailed

• Systems rework– E.g. number reorientation, standardized components

• Inter-system collaboration – E.g. real-time, multi-party, supply chain visibility

• More hardware, software, communications, consulting, support, new problems???

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Technology Waves…