What kind of help can RFID technology bring in the era of Internet of Things

RFID is the abbreviation of Radio Frequency Identification. With the rapid development of high technology and driven by the era of great interconnection, RFID is widely used in the Internet of Things, medical care, security, transportation and other fields. In recent years, RFID has also been widely used in the apparel industry, retail industry, and even gradually spread to other industries.

Technical principle of RFID RFID is a kind of non-contact automatic identification technology. It automatically recognizes the target object and obtains related data through radio frequency signals. The identification work does not require manual intervention and can work in various harsh environments. Simply put, RFID is a wireless system. The basic RFID system consists of three parts: an electronic tag, a reader, and an antenna. When the electronic tag enters the magnetic field, if it receives a special radio frequency signal from the reader, it can rely on induction The energy obtained by the current sends out the information stored in the chip or actively sends a signal of a certain frequency. After the reader reads and decodes the information, it is sent to the central information system for relevant data processing. Through the non-contact data communication between the reader and the electronic tag to achieve the purpose of identifying the target, RFID is also considered to be one of the most promising information technologies in the 21st century.

The development history of RFID: Derived from radar technology. Many people may not understand that RFID was first derived from radar technology. As early as 1948, the article "Communications Using Reflected Power" published by American scientist Harry Stockman laid the theoretical foundation of radio frequency identification technology; from 1940 to 1950, the improvement and application of radar gave birth to radio frequency identification technology; 1950— 1960: Early exploration of radio frequency identification technology was mainly in the laboratory experimental research stage; 1960—1970: RFID theory was developed and began to be used in practical applications; 1970—1980: RFID product research and development entered a period of great development, Early radio frequency identification applications began to appear; 1980-1990: RFID products were commercialized, and related products gradually became a part of people’s lives; 2000-present: RFID products are more diverse, including active electronic tags, passive electronic tags and semi- Passive electronic tags have been developed, the production cost of RFID products has further decreased, and the application fields have gradually increased.

Classification of RFID RFID can be divided into four categories according to operating frequency, power supply mode, application range and read/write type. According to the working frequency, it can be divided into low frequency, low frequency, high frequency, ultra high frequency and microwave. The propagation speed and distance of different frequencies are different; according to the power supply mode, it can be divided into three modes: active, passive and semi-active, corresponding to active, Passive and semi-active energy acquisition methods; according to the scope of application, it can be divided into closed-loop applications for enterprises and industries, and cross-industry open-loop methods; according to the type of read and write, it can be divided into read-write cards, one write and multiple reads Card and read-only card.

Advantages and disadvantages of RFID Although RFID has been widely used in related IoT industries, the technology itself has certain advantages and disadvantages. First look at its advantages:

(1) RFID has brought about an improvement in work efficiency. It can read thousands of times per second and can efficiently process multiple tags at the same time, so that enterprises can greatly improve work efficiency under the premise of controlling costs. The process is real-time and transparent, creating huge economic benefits;

(2) RFID tags are not like barcode tags. They need to be aligned and scanned. The information can be read only when the RFID tag is placed in the electromagnetic field formed by the device. This method can reduce manual work errors. , Downgrade the waste of human resources and reduce the generation of errors;

(3) The data information on the RFID tag can be repeatedly modified, which also means that the RFID tag can be recycled and reused within the enterprise, which further saves the operating cost of the enterprise.

The disadvantages are as follows

(1) The cost of RFID is relatively expensive, coupled with supporting transmitters, readers, encoders and antennas, the cost is further increased;

(2)一旦RFID标签接近读者,will unconditionally trigger to send out information, so it involves privacy issues;

(3) Environmental conditions with metal and moisture will interfere with RFID identification and affect information reading.

RFID市场是巨大的,国际米兰的崛起net of Things in China has led to the rapid development of RFID. According to estimates, the RFID market has grown from 60.9 billion yuan in 2016 to 110 billion yuan in 2019, a 6-year compound growth rate of 14.5%. The development of the application field of RFID products in China is relatively mature. RFID can be seen in daily life applications such as electronic bills, mobile payment, and card access. However, these applications are mostly RFID low- and high-frequency applications, and in the more high-end advanced high-frequency applications, there are relatively few domestic manufacturers that focus on R&D or production, and they are still in their infancy. In general, among the many RFID companies in the country, there are not many companies that are really engaged in the development of RFID UHF core technology, and there are not many companies with independent intellectual property rights, which is a relatively weak link in China's RFID industry.

RFID helps the rapid development of Internet of Things applications RFID technology plays a pivotal role in the development of the Internet of Things. The focus is on the perception layer of the Internet of Things. This article focuses on the following industries as examples:

In the transportation field, RFID is most commonly used in the often-mentioned ETC system. The ETC system is the so-called "non-stop toll system", which can realize automatic charging without stopping the vehicle. The ETC system combines modern communication technology, electronic technology, automatic control technology, computer and network technology and other high-tech as the leading technology. When the RFID tag installed on the vehicle is close to the range of the ETC reader (usually 1-10 meters), The ETC reader/writer emits a microwave query signal. After receiving the query signal from the reader, the RFID tag on the vehicle will reflect this signal and the data information of the electronic tag itself (such as high-speed mileage, vehicle information, etc.) back to read the card器中. The biggest advantage of this is that it reduces the trouble of manual charging, improves the efficiency of vehicle clearance, and avoids traffic jams.

The application of RFID in the medical field in the hospital information system will significantly improve the efficiency of hospital asset operation and the level of medical services. The application in the following aspects is relatively mature: First, the management of the pharmaceutical supply chain, RFID tags can identify physical objects at any moment in the manufacturing and distribution process. It can help pharmaceutical companies produce more types of more complex products in small batches, and monitor drugs at all nodes in the supply chain, including accurate target batch delivery, etc., thereby reducing medical problems. Once problems occur Better realize drug traceability; second, medical monitoring, the hospital will wear wrist tags for each patient. Medical staff only need to scan the label information with a handheld reader to know the patient information, the rescue of emergency patients will not be delayed, and there will be no accidents caused by the wrong identification of the injured. In the case of patient transfer, the patient information can also be transmitted without error; the third is to track and locate important hospital assets and materials. Large medical centers generally have large storage bases for important medical assets and medical materials, and hospital logistics personnel daily Need to find suitable items from thousands of materials according to the order. The use of RFID tags will make this search and verification process extremely fast and accurate, and the tags themselves can carry item-related information, which can increase the speed of the entire verification process by about 20 times.

The entire logistics system in the logistics field is closely related to RFID from the initial stage of goods labeling to the warehouse, to the medium-term inventory check, and the later outbound allocation. For example, when new goods are labeled and entered into the warehouse, the unique ID number or written data of the electronic tag can be compared to the "ID number" of the goods. The data includes the name of the goods, the time of purchase, the warehouse, and the attributes of the goods. People only need to scan the code with the reader to read the cargo information. This process also saves a lot of time for inventory counting. The staff only needs to hold the reader for regular inventory, read the label information of the goods at close range, and compare with the background management system to know whether the goods information is consistent with the background system, if not consistent The system information can be amended on site. Similarly, when the goods are out of the warehouse, the exit gate RFID reader reads the goods tags to obtain the outbound information, and verifies whether the product batch numbers and locations listed in the shipped products and outbound orders are correct. After the delivery is completed, if there are any problems with the goods in the future, you can also find out what problems have happened before the goods are delivered to the user through traceability.