Near Field UHF RFID vs HF for Item Level Tagging

Item level tagging is going to be the biggest market for RFID. It has special requirements - for example, the tags must be very small and be read in large groups, with no confusion about which is which. Water and metal are frequently in, on or near these items, yet exceptionally high read accuracy is demanded with drugs, jewellery, etc. Smart shelves, often made of metal, need to distinguish one from another, however small the items are and there must be robust capability for multi-tag reading.

 

Wal-Mart mandates UHF for item level drugs: many leading drug companies, all libraries and most laundries fit HF RFID on their items. There is not room for two tags on many of the items. We must learn the lessons from anti-theft tagging where consumer goods suppliers alternately have to fit one of three incompatible tags on each type of item depending on who buys it and there are three incompatible infrastructures out there. Even two incompatible systems for the same items would be problematical and expensive.

 

Recently, many of the UHF proponents have switched to recommending what they see as a "best of both worlds" hybrid called Near Field UHF, although it has limited commercial availability as yet. If near field UHF lives up to its promise and its limitations are overcome, such as high interrogator cost, then its potential cost and other benefits may lead it to being used on a lot of items. However, we shall not have one-tag-fits-all because combined NF/FF UHF tags are too big for many items and UHF tags for pallets, cases, air baggage etc will always need to come in many variations tuned to what they are to sit on. That is a problem with UHF.

 

Not surprisingly then, no supplier is ceasing its activity in HF RFID and some UHF RFID suppliers are broadening their capability to HF. Hedging of bets may be in order and the likely outcome is that there will be a place for both solutions but rarely on the same product.

 

The impending stand off between these options in RFID in general is a complex matter and IDTechEx technical experts have taken inputs from many of the most respected designers to create this independent analysis. Getting it right is key to the commercial success of the many RFID companies now in this enormous but fast changing market arena.

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For further information, contact Corinne Jennings on + 44 (0)1223 813703 or email .