RFID conference speakers share visions of future

Speakers at RFID World Boston predict tiny RFID readers, printable tags and more.

By Corinne Kator, Associate Editor -- Modern Materials Handling, 9/20/2007

By 2027, most companies will have more RFID readers than telephones. This prediction from Odin Technologies CEO Patrick Sweeney is one of many technology predictions made yesterday during the opening day of the RFID World Boston conference.

The conference, which continues today, is focusing on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology as an authentication and security tool.

Sweeney also predicts that 20 years from now advanced batteries—perhaps those fueled by hydrogen—will increase the usefulness of active RFID tags. In the next three to five years, he says, Intel’s new R1000 chip will allow companies to make tiny RFID readers at half the cost of today’s readers.

According to another conference speaker, Jeff Schaengold of Siemens, the future of RFID is to skip the labeling process and instead incorporate RFID tags directly into products’ primary packaging, much as UPC bar codes are today. This will involve printing an RFID tag as part of a product’s four-color packaging. Siemens is so confident in this scenario, he says, the company has invested heavily in PolyIC, a startup developing printed electronics.

Printed RFID tags are also part of the future view of Alistair McArthur, chief technology officer at Tagsys. McArthur also predicts we’ll soon see RFID tags with no external antennae; instead the antennae will be part of the chip.

Frank LoVerme of Kestrel Wireless envisions a future in which specially configured RFID tags protect DVDs and other electronics from theft in the supply chain. The tags will allow manufacturers to disable their products before they leave the production facility and then allow retailers to enable them again at point-of-sale, making products stolen from warehouses or retail stores essentially worthless.

Another conference presenter, Etienne Lamairesse of the French startup Signoptic, says the future of item-level tracking and tracing may not involve RFID at all. Instead of using a bar code label or RFID tag to identify an item, Signoptic’s process uses a camera and software to capture a detailed image of a portion of a product, analyze the unique physical characteristics of the glass, metal, paper or other material of which the product is made, and then use those characteristics as a “fingerprint” for tracking and tracing.