A team of researchers in Scotland has unveiled a RFID tag, which they claim could make the technology cheaper as well as more sustainable.
The scientists at the University of Glasgow explain that the new RFID tag does not need a chip, which is the hardest component of the devices to make. The chips also represent 50% of the tag’s carbon impact.
As RFID tags become more and more integral in asset and inventory tracking, this invention could have huge fiscal as well as environmental implications.
How Does a Chipless RFID Tag Work?
The new design is passive. As the RFID Journal explains, it consists of “a sensor material [made from PDMS silicon rubber and carbon fibers] and an antenna”.
The journal adds: “The coils, smaller than the ones found in credit cards, absorb electromagnetic signals from a hand-held reader using electromagnetic waves.” The tag changes the frequency of these waves if there is a change in sensor measurement.
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This measurement could be, for example, temperature. The team explains that the tags react in just seconds and performed well between 20 to 60 degrees Celsius. They can, however, detect variations in temperature between 20 and 110 degrees Celsius.
The team adds that the RFID reader can currently communicate with three tags at once but it is aiming to increase this to 10 tags.
Applications of new RFID Tag
Mahmoud Wagih is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering, and author of the white paper and article about the new tag in the Advanced Science journal.
He explains that this range means that the tags would be best suited to food safety and medical applications. Tags could be placed on products displayed in a store and the consistency of temperature monitored along the shelf. “If for example one region in that shelf is now overheating, or something is not cooling in one part of the fridge” that data could be acted upon in real time, said University of Glasgow research associate, Benjamin King.
He explains though that there are far more applications: “That sensing material, its properties change in response to whatever stimuli that we have in mind so there’s really nothing stopping us from being able to design a humidity sensitive material or pressure sensitive material — the potential versatility is interesting.”
Eco Impact of Chipless RFID Tag
There is a caveat in that the tags can send only three bits of data as compared to the approximately 128 bits or more of a standard UHF RFID tag. The system also only works at a range of around 1cm.
However, the new designs have a huge advantage as they are easier to make, don’t have the chemical waste element of chip manufacture and also are easier to recycle. The chips in standard RFID tags have to be removed before the tags can be disposed of.
According to Eco Experts, more than 53.6 million tons of e-waste is produced globally, which is a 21% rise in just 5 years. This new technology might make a tiny dent on this figure.
