RFID is a very valuable technology and business tool. It holds the promise of replacing existing identification technologies like the bar code. RFID offers strategic advantages for businesses because it can track inventory in the supply chain more efficiently, provide real-time analysis, and monitor general enterprise assets. The more RFID is in the news, the more creative people are about its potential applications. For example, I recently heard from someone who wanted to use RFID to track livestock in farm.

RFID is actually nothing new. Just as goods today have bar codes, goods in RFID systems have codes that enable systems to share information. Because the mandated RFID systems require businesses to share information with each other, the different systems need to use the same code — the electronic product code (EPC). The EPC is the individual number associated with an RFID tag or chip.

In essence, an RFID system is just a reader and a tag communicating over the air at a certain frequency, like any other radio communication. The readers, antennas, tags, and frequency make up the basics of an RFID system.

RFID reader is really a radio, just like the one you have in your car, except that an RFID reader picks up analog signals, not hip-hop. The reader produces electricity that runs down a cable at a particular rate.

If the reader transmits a signal out into space (and space can be the distance from one side of a dock door to the other), what is out there transmitting back? The answer of course is the tag.

Both the tags and the readers operate over a specific frequency. Think of them as what they really are: radios that have their own very specific stations on which they can talk and listen.

The majority of RFID being used in the supply chain world uses the ultra high frequency band, or UHF. In the Malaysia, this is referred to as the 921 megahertz (MHz) band. Although it is actually the 919–923 MHz range, 921 just happens to be the center. In Europe and US, this range is slightly different. Some applications, such as pharmaceuticals and asset tracking, use high frequency, or HF, which is at 13.56 MHz.

Components of RFID Technology