SCADA, Telematics & GPS Technologies

Fishery researchers in Thailand plan to adopt an RFID-enabled system to track the broodstock – the fish kept isolated for breeding purposes – of several fish species key to the country’s export business. With the system, researchers can track the development of the broodstock and supervise crossbreeding programs to improve the species.

Researchers at the Department of Fisheries Science at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Lad-krabang are embedding RFID chips in three aquatic species, the Giant Prawn, Nile Tilapia and Walking Catfish. The three species are crucial to Thailand’s economy, with an export value of about 2 billion bahts a year.

Since last year, the team has embedded RFID chips into more than a thousand of the three aquatic species. Researchers are working to determine the least disruptive way to insert the tags into the tiny juvenile creatures. To keep the system simple, the tags will only include a serial number to identify the individual. Other information, such as the animal’s breed, its growth and diet, will be maintained in a database.

“We will track an animal’s growth on a monthly basis, to monitor its overall development. The software will help us analyze the data. If we find that the animal is not growing well, we will implement cross breeding to improve the species,” said project leader Rungtawan Panakulchaiwit.

The project has received funding from the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre, as well as support from two private RFID companies, Silicon Craft Technology and IE Technology. After the pilot program is completed, the research center plans to promote the technology to private aquatic-animal farms across the country to help improve their farm management.

Source: RFID News

Photo: Rekhan

GlobalTrak’s Remote Sensor Nodes (RSNs) increase the shipper’s ability to monitor cargo condition with a variable set of sensors for door status, humidity, temperature, a 3-axis accelerometer, and now an extremely sensitive gamma detector, a long term stable sensor with built-in temperature compensation and low power consumption.

Richard C. Meyers, CEO of GlobalTrak, described how the sensors on an RSN add important cargo data for GlobalTrak’s customers, “Remote Sensor Nodes send reports and real-time alerts to any GlobalTrak AMU over a ZigBee protocol wireless network, allowing the data to be communicated to stakeholders. This is a flexible and convenient way of placing sensors where they need to be within a loaded container, truck trailer, or railcar.”

In a radiation monitoring application, the GlobalTrak AMU is mounted on the exterior of the container, truck trailer, or railcar with one or more RSNs equipped with the gamma detector positioned inside the load in best detection positions. The detectors have low and high alarm thresholds to accommodate varying levels of background radiation, such as might be encountered in an ocean transit versus a land route.

The same ZigBee wireless network that allows RSNs to report their status through the AMU can be used to enhance shipment security by monitoring the status of EJ Brooks’ electronic strap seals on individual packages within the shipment or bolt seals on the door of a container, truck trailer, or rail car.

Source: MarketWatch

Image: MaritimeInstituteOnline

Alanco Technologies has announced that its subsidiary Alanco/TSI Prism, a provider of real-time RFID tracking technologies, has won a $3.3 million contract to create an RFID-based inmate tracking system for the Washington D.C. Department of Corrections.

The Alanco/TSI Prism system, which will combine Alanco’s TSI Prism RFID system with Wi-Fi compatible RTLS technology from AeroScout, will be installed at a Washington DC jail complex housing over 2,000 prisoners and staffed by 450 DOC employees. The system is intended to increase safety and improve inmate accountability.

Source: RFID News

Hewlett-Packard has introduced a new service which enables clients to track their critical data center assets. The HP Factory Express RFID Service automates and tracks device movement, eliminating the need for employees to manually track inventory.

The HP tagging process scans factory-built HP components such as servers, storage devices and rack enclosures before they are incorporated into a client’s data center, and provides an accurate inventory of the assets throughout their life cycle. The service can provide real-time supply chain visibility, helping to reduce property loss, increase security and improve audit controls.

There are two levels of the service available. The HP RFID Factory Express Standard Service includes standard generation-two RFID tags affixed to specific HP products or packaging with a unique Electronic Product Code assignment and data tracking capabilities. The HP RFID Factory Express Custom Service allows for customized RFID tag placement and additional RFID services from HP that transmit RFID tracking information from the factory to the customer.

The HP Factory Express RFID Service is available directly through HP or its channel partners in the United States and Canada, or as part of HP Factory Express, a broader portfolio of integrated factory solutions and deployment services. HP plans to extend the service to customers worldwide over the next year.

Source: RFID News

The New Zealand government has pledged $23.3 million (New Zealand dollars) to create a system of mandatory RFID-tagging for all of the country’s farm-raised cattle and deer by 2011. The funding for the biosecurity project will cover its set-up costs, with a new tax likely to be levied to support operational costs.

Under the proposed National Animal Identification and Tracing project, each farm animal will be assigned a unique code that will be stored in a database alongside details such as the age, sex and breed of the animal, its owner, its herd of origin and the identification number of the property on which it is located. The project would also create FarmsOnLine, an online database that will store up-to-date electronic maps of farms along with their contact and stock details.

The system will assist in tracking animals in the event of disease outbreak, but could also be used by farmers to improve farm management, and by retailers to provide consumers with more information about meat’s origin.

The mandatory nature of the system will require new legislation to put it into permanent effect, but officials believe they can get the system up and running before such legislation is passed. Trials of RFID tags are under way at a dozen farms in New Zealand.

Source: Link

Cephalon Inc. has selected OAT’s RFID solution for serialized shipment container tracking, extending its SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure for RFID reach to operational processes and workflows. Cephalon is an international biopharmaceutical company that has been testing RFID technology for the past three years to improve supply chain efficiency and visibility. RFID serialized container tracking will support efforts to combat counterfeiting as well as improve process execution.

OAT’s RFID solution was integrated with SAP Solution for RFID to enable serialized shipping container tracking and to set the foundation for tracking drug pedigrees. Cephalon has architected SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure as an extension of its core ERP processes for serialized product and containers to enrich standard processes around deliveries, advanced shipping notices, pick/pack/ship and handling.

This new project extends this architecture further and leverages the combined OAT and SAP solution to enable distribution center-based processes and workflows to track serialized shipping containers. OAT commissions and associates the RFID tags with specific containers and records the containers’ contents and attributes; SAP solutions provide process oversight, number range management and OAT provides operational workflow management. After processing, OAT reports back the shipping container’s EPC number and the details of its contents, enabling SAP business processes such as pharmaceutical advance shipping notices to be carried out automatically.
Source: RFID News

The yet unsolved kidnapping of kids have brought much fear to parents with young kids in the country. Despite the intense police and public search nationwide and on-going media coverage, the six-year-old is still nowhere to be found.

As long as the culprits are still at large, the chances of other kids being kidnapped remain high. For the time being, maybe it’s time the authority starts thinking of the possible unconventional measures that can be taken to prevent this heinous crime.

One thing or rather technology that may sound possible to be implemented is radio frequency identification, or commonly known as RFID.

Although its usage currently is very much concentrated on information tracking functions, including inventory management, movement of shipping containers, library books, credit cards, etc, there is a possibility that this technology can be used for tracking humans.

For those who are not familiar with RFID, it’s a tiny rice-sized chip that has an antenna. When the chip hears a specific radio signal, it responds with information, usually a long identification number to allow it to be tracked.

Over the past couple of years, trials have been done in countries such as the US, UK and Mexico on its potential to prevent kidnapping. These include planting the RFID device in children’s clothing or injecting it beneath the skin. The idea is viable because RFID chip does not use battery, and since it is small enough, it can be attached to practically anything.

The issue today is that people don’t like the idea of having something attached to them for the purpose of tracking. The idea of planting the chip in one’s body is still unacceptable to many as it’s a kind of privacy intrusion. But using it on clothing or school bags does seem to make more sense.

Applying this to school kids aged 12 and below may be acceptable because these kids are still not mature enough to protect themselves.

The whole idea of having a trackable device is to make it possible to track a missing child in the first few critical hours of the kidnapping incident, and with the RFID chip transmitting the much-needed data, it may make the search of the missing child easier and faster.

Initiatives like these would need all parties to be involved, especially the Government with the help of telecommunications companies and the relevant technology vendors.

If this technology can be implemented in the near future, as the technology mature and becomes cheaper, the chances of tracking a kidnapped child are probably higher.