RF-ID tracking

Integrated RF-ID Tracking

Posted by samc on February 4th, 2008

Today, AeroScout announced a series of partnerships and new software that let organizations use multiple real-time location system (RTLS) technologies in a single system. It integrates Wi-Fi Active RFID, with Ultra Wideband and Passive RFID.

AeroScout has been a leader in Wi-Fi-based Active RFID tracking. Their new products feature integration between Wi-Fi Active RFID, Passive RFID and Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and puts that information on easy to use application software.

• AeroScout and Time Domain introduced the industry’s first combined Wi-Fi / Ultra Wideband Tracking System
• AeroScout and Reva Systems launch an integrated Passive and Active RFID Solution.
• AeroScout’s MobileView 4.0 lets users TRACK, ALERT, MANAGE and INTEGRATE their assets from a single, enterprise-ready platform.

The new line of unified, dual-mode products tracks assets using both standard Wi-Fi and UWB standards. And integration with Reva Systems brings enables joint Passive RFID / Active RFID installations. AeroScout says it’s the industry’s only dual-mode tag that can be tracked over standard Wi-Fi networks, while adding high precision of UWB where desired.

Attempts to standardize UWB through the IEEE 802.15.3a floundered two years ago with two opposing sides – the UWB Forum and WiMedia Alliance – going their separate ways. But the WiMedia Alliance was able to get its technology standardized through the European standardization organization Ecma International as well as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Nurses may put active band-aids on hospital patients to wirelessly monitor as many as three vital signs sometime next year. Startup Toumaz Technology described its custom chip to power such a disposable device at the International Solid State Circuits Conference Monday in San Francisco.

The chip is one of an emerging group of smart wearable devices that ultimately aim to help patients get medical monitoring from the comfort of home.

A large U.S. health care company is said to be working with Toumaz, aiming to field the silicon-backed band-aids in a hospital setting before the end of 2009. Other giants include GE and Philips are said to have similar projects in the lab.

In just more than three months, millions of law-abiding Americans might face new hassles when traveling on commercial flights if they hold driver’s licenses or identification cards issued by Maine, South Carolina, Montana, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, and up to 15 other states plus the District of Columbia that have rejected the Real ID regulations on privacy and cost grounds or have not agreed to comply. (See C/Net map).

Starting May 11, unless your home state agrees to comply with the federal Real ID Act or unless it asks for an extension, you should expect problems going through security at airports.

This represents a potentially embarrassing political setback to the Bush administration, which has championed Real ID as a way to identify terrorists and criminals. But instead of what supporters hoped would be a seamless shift to a nationalized ID card, the requirements have created a confusing patchwork of state responses.

With the prospect of a billion-dollar tab, a giant database prone to hacker attacks and the fact that every American driver’s license holder will have to renew or obtain a new license in person — meaning lines of epic proportions at the DMV — many states and their representatives are starting to question whether they want to be a part of this whole Real ID thing after all.

source : dailywireless.org