Interoperable RFID under discussion

Fuelled by a new spirit of cooperation between European and Chinese technology experts, a Plugtests interoperability testing event has helped to ensure the effective worldwide application of RFID in postal applications.

Co-organised by the China Electrical Standards Institute (CESI) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the first-ever interoperability event for RFID to be held in China took place in April.

The five-day event was hosted by the China Postal Science and Planning Academy (CPST) and was supported by ETSI's RFID Task Group (TC ERM TG34), the RFID Standards Group China and the Chinese National Registration of IC Cards.

Engineers from all over the world gathered together to test the interoperability and performance of RFID as applied to postal applications. A range of real-life scenarios tested the application of RFID devices from multiple vendors conforming to two major international UHF RFID standards and demonstrated the interoperability of devices made to those standards.

This is claimed as a world first, as one of these RFID standards is new and devices based on it have never been publicly tested in this way before.

RFID must operate globally since it is frequently used with objects that move worldwide, such as postal items. It is therefore essential that equipment manufactured by different RFID vendors is interoperable.

Typical applications demonstrate different properties such as field characteristics, tag population, speed and reader density. These properties impose various requirements such as read or write sensitivity and resistance to mutual coupling.

Exposing tags of different types from different vendors to interrogators supplied by a range of manufacturers in application-specific conditions determines if there are any combinations that are incompatible.

The focus of this Plugtests event was to ensure a satisfactory level of interoperability between equipment supplied by different vendors, but conforming to the same standard, and also the cooperability of devices complying with the different UHF RFID standards, all operating under Chinese Radio Regulations.

The event drew 37 participants from 14 companies. Support was provided by specialists in the field of RFID and by ETSI testing experts.

The postal application scenarios centred on using RFID to identify re-usable plastic mail cases, mail carts and mail bags. The true-to-life test scenarios used were challenging because of the quantity and speed of tags to be read.

The results provided vital information for end users who wish to use RFID globally and point to a potential for early adoption of non-battery-powered UHF tags and reader devices for such scenarios.