Smart RFID Tags

RFID has been identified as one of the cornerstones of the upcoming Internet of Things (IoT) and the focus is moving from conventional RFID towards next generation pervasive networked and interconnected systems. In the future IoT billions of objects are envisioned to report their identity, location, environmental conditions and history over wireless connections. An on-going effort that will support this gradual change is the development of "smart RFID tags", tags that are able to sense, monitor, and adapt to their changing environment. RFID systems alone provide item and product visibility within the supply chain. This visibility can further be translated into actionable data and predictive changes with additional information attained through sensing capabilities. Intelligent RFID tags can combine sensing, computation and communication into a single, small device. The need for new sensing solutions is highlighted further by the fact that legislation, regulatory and quality demands are setting requirements for certain branches (pharmaceuticals, explosives, transportation of dangerous goods, foods, etc). Cold chain compliance is a key requirement for pharmaceuticals, hospital transfusions, clinical trials, foods and perishable items. RFID can be used to fight counterfeiting and RFID can provide the electrical pedigree of a product. Most efforts on RFID tag design so far have been concentrated on the ultra low price tag segment. This has led to compromised performance when label tags have been applied in “unsuitable” environments and has been evidenced as low reading accuracy in many RFID pilots. In order to reach a high reading accuracy and reliable long distance operation, RFID tags ought to be immune or adapt to their environment (e.g. presence of metals, liquids, gas...) to avoid detuning and other impairing effect caused by their surroundings. New solutions to implement platform insensitive/platform tolerant and platform adaptive RFID tags are emerging.