ABSTRACT
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 468 Characteristics of RFID Tags ............................................................................. 468
Frequency Range ...................................................................................... 468 Power Supply ............................................................................................ 469
Passive Tags .................................................................................. 470 Semi-Passive Tags ......................................................................... 470 Active Tags ................................................................................... 470
Data Access ............................................................................................... 470 Criteria for Technology Selection ...................................................................... 470
Operating Frequency ................................................................................. 470 Type of Tags .............................................................................................. 471 Data Access ............................................................................................... 471 Tag Physical Design .................................................................................. 471 Standards ................................................................................................... 471 Antenna ..................................................................................................... 471 Material ..................................................................................................... 471 Surface ...................................................................................................... 472 RFID Integration Cycle ............................................................................ 472 RFID Applications .................................................................................... 472
General Uses of RFID ........................................................................................ 473 Stock Control and Inventory ..................................................................... 473 Tracking and Traceability ......................................................................... 474 Security, Identifi cation, and Access Control ............................................. 475 Production Lines and Manufacturing ....................................................... 476
Logistics .................................................................................................... 476 Object Tracking ........................................................................................ 477 Real-Time Locating Systems .................................................................... 477 Supply Chain Management ....................................................................... 477 Human and Animal Identifi cation ............................................................. 478 Medical Applications ................................................................................ 478 Events Management .................................................................................. 478 Law Enforcement ...................................................................................... 478 Management of Documentation Centers .................................................. 478 Museums and Exhibitions ......................................................................... 478 Cross-Classifi cation of RFID Applications .............................................. 479
RFID Specifi c Case Studies ............................................................................... 479 RFID in General Stores: Wal-Mart ........................................................... 479 RFID Vehicle Manufacturing: Thomas Built Buses ................................. 480 RFID at the Rotterdam Port ...................................................................... 482 RFID in Sports: Ironman Australia Triathlon ........................................... 483 Access Control: Fira de Barcelona ........................................................... 484 RFID in Electronic Toll Collection: E-ZPass ........................................... 485 RFID in Libraries: The LIBER-IMMS Project ......................................... 486
Summary ............................................................................................................ 488 References .......................................................................................................... 488
Radio-frequency identifi cation (RFID) tags are considered by some to be the natural substitutes of traditional barcodes and it is obviously desirable that barcode-assisted applications should benefi t from advanced RFID features. A clear example is library inventorying, where it is possible to place a tag containing different information (such as book title, author, description, price, reference code, etc.) on the back inside cover of a book. RFID offers numerous advantages over traditional barcodes [1,2]: (a) there are no line-of-sight requirements between the tag and the reader, (b) multiple tags can be read at a time, (c) the tag has a memory for temporal data, and (d) tag read time is lower than with barcodes. Thanks to these advantages and a gradual reduction in costs in recent years, the use of RFID is expanding, although the technology is still mostly used in systems integration.
