Rfid advice

[Leko]

I know this is completely off Mechmate, but I know that there are some folks around here with considerable rfid experience. I was hoping someone might give me a point in the right direction. I am working on a project and we are considering using rfid technology to identify people as well as trigger events throughout an attraction. I was hoping to get the names of two good, reliable rfid system vendors that might be willing to work on a project that is probably outside of there norm. It seems that every project I work on is unusual and am always using technology in was that it was never intended, or at least considered.

I would appreciate any direction. I am more than willing to research and find the right people, but thought someone experienced might be able to help me avoid chasing a bunch of unfruitful avenues.

Thank you,
Leko

[Gerald D]

I have been into RFID for the last 3 years or so and sadly not a single system vendor stands out to be recommended. Couldn't even find a decent discussion forum where a question like yours would attract sound advice. Ended up researching all the aspects and building my own system, even down to building a unique tag. Not sorry I went that deep into it because it turned out that the basics are fairly simple and economical. The "system suppliers" are obviously out to earn a buck and they are not impartial as to frequencies and supply houses. All of them try to shoot down working with Asia, yet all the top guys have factories in Asia. There are lots of smokescreens!

When you say "using rfid technology to identify people", you are in very tricky territory. There is a growing group of folk fighting against electronic identification of people and they are getting militant. Google "rfid tag zapper"

[smreish]

Matthew,
Give me an email with the details. The folks at Cognex might be able to help. They assisted me with some RFID and tracking for that "other project" we were working on.

Cognex.com


Best! How's the weather on the island?

Sean

[skillalot]

I was working in a pig slaughtery for 6 years, where we had RFID chips in the hooks where the carcasses where hanging on. We had RFID readers and antenna's throughout the whole factory where we could add information to a specific carcass.

Before I left a few months ago we were testing with our supplier on RFID earmarks. The farmers put special earmarks with a RFID chip in the ears of the pig, and halfway the slaughtery where the pigs where hooked on after killing, bleeding, de-hairing etc, that RFID from the earmark was read and matched to our RFID chip in the hook it was hanging on.

The reader and antenna for that RFID earmark was one very large panel, I believe it was 400x600mm's and it could read the earmarks from a distance of over 500mm's. It had a memory for a million records, webinterface, PoE and RS232 interface for direct communication.
http://www.nedap-liveid.com/uploads/File/panelreadervp1850.pdf

Anyway, that's my experience with RFID, but our supplier have multiple departments and specialties.

It's a dutch company, called NEDAP. Maybe they can help you with your project.

http://www.nedap-liveid.com/
http://www.nedapavi.com/
http://www.nedap-agri.com/en/


Regards,
Sascha