All RFID tags are used to store and eventually remit information. They can best be thought of as the replacement for the bar code. However, they have significant advantages over bar codes. For example: RFID tags can store much more data than bar codes; they can be read from further away and they can actually send data, not only store information.

There are three kinds of RFID tags: passive, active and hybrid. Passive RFID tags are the cheapest, because they are less complex. They have to be asked to disclose their information by borrowing power from an RFID reader. When the reader’s radio waves hit them, they reflect back their information. This is the kind of tag used in clothing in a retail outlet or on boxes in a stockroom.

On the other hand, active RFID tags have a battery, a transmitter and an aerial so that they are always transmitting. These units are clearly a lot more expensive and so are used only on more expensive items like a container, a battle tank, an aircraft, on criminals ankle bands or on an animal of an endangered species.

The hybrid RFID tag is capable of transmitting, but it needs to be told to transmit; it has to be turned on by a signal. This signal could be a satellite passing over head. These hybrid RFID tags are also costly, but the battery lasts longer because they are not ‘always on’. These tags have the same applications as the active tags, but are appropriate for use where it is not critical to know where something is every minute of the day: for instance cattle in a field or goats on a mountain.

Passive tags can be attached permanently by sewing them into linings or putting them under skin because they do not have their own power source and do not wear out. This is a cause of anxiety to some people who worry about an invasion of their privacy or the erosion of their human rights.

Active and hybrid tags are most often clearly visible so that the batteries can be replaced as and when necessary. If this is going to unlikely to happen, as in the case of wild animals, the tag can have a biodegradable clasp which will break sometime after the probable life of the battery.

Some uses for RFID tags are on season tickets so that the holder can pass through the style more quickly than a customer paying by cash. It has uses in security; most of the ID badges you see pinned to jackets have RFID built into them so that security guards do not have to stop and question everybody.

They can be put into trucks that repeatedly cross frontiers so that they do not have to stop for identification. They can be placed on windscreens so that, as you drive through a motorway toll post, either your credit card is debited or the charge is added to your company’s monthly account.

Hospitals utilize them on patients so that they do not misplace anyone or misidentify them. RFID tags are useful in our daily lives but people are concerned about criminals being able to read all this information too easily as well.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is now concerned with the RFID asset tracking. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Active RFID Management.

How does one go about taking care of one’s assets – one’s worldly possessions? Well, the majority of people keep their money in the bank, put the jewellery in a strongbox and insure the rest. But insurance is not really taking care of your possessions, is it? It is taking care of yourself so that you do not have replace them with your own money.

In the old days, and even now, I suppose in some countries, you would employ a boy to watch over your sheep or cattle or bring them in at night for fear of lions, wolves or rustlers. These were an early form of security guard and indeed wealthy people had and often still do have private body guards.

What if you had a large office with a hundred laptop computers – laptops because employees had to do field work as well? How would you keep track on all those? A car is another good case in point and construction site machinery is being stolen all the time even from under the watchful gaze of (or with the help of) private security firms.

So what can you do? Get dogs? That works usually, but they can be poisoned. Install video cameras and passive infra-red movement sensors connected to a control centre? That works and a lot of firms and private houses have it, but it is very expensive.

As a cheap alternative, the police were handing out free pens in the UK, which wrote in invisible ink. The idea was to put your postcode and house number. This ink became visible under a certain kind of light. That is all very well if you have a suspect or found property.

Bar codes are not practical, the pen is better. It all comes back to insurance or surveillance.

However, there is another technique that is becoming affordable. The concept has been around for about 85 years, but it was too expensive to use on anything less significant than an airplane or a battle tank.

I am talking about radio frequency identification or RFID for short. The idea is the same one that aircraft have been using since during the Second World War – a transponder emits precoded information in answer to a demand from an RF reader.

Information concerning ownership and particulars of what the item is can be written to an RFID chip also known as a tag and the tag can then be taped inside the item that it is to protect.

There are two types of tag: the passive and the active. Passive tags will only reply if details are requested by a reader, whereas an active tag is always broadcasting.

Many entrepreneurs use RFID tagging to keep track of their assets. In the instance of livestock, most cattle are tagged these days. Most big offices have their IT devices tagged as well and we all know that clothing stores have been tagging garments for years, although maybe you did not know what that button was that they were taking off at the checkout.

People are already tagging their dogs, cats and cars and it will not be long before these asset management techniques will be used extensively at home too. Insurance companies may demand on it.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on several topics, but is currently involved with the RFID asset management. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Active RFID Management.