July 14, 2006
VLID and RuBee LWID - Alternatives To RFID?
Back in early June, the IEEE revealed standard 1902.1, aka RuBee, an alternative to RFID technology. There was buzz about it since 2005, or even earlier, as a technology that would solve a lot of the problems of RFID.
While several large American retailers and vendors are backing the project, it's not expected to reach full fruition for a year or longer. (The target date is Oct 2007.) The idea is that the real return on investment for RFID will come from item-level tracking, for which RFID is currently too costly, amongst other problems. Supposedly, RuBee will change that.
RuBee LWID (Long Wavelength ID) tags are mostly magnetic/ inductive, whereas RFID tags are typically radio frequency-based. More information is available in the IEEE (PDF). This document reveals that RuBee works on a "long wavelength (< 450Khz), low speed (300-9600 Baud), low power, medium range (50' to 100')" basis.
If you want an idea of how slow 300 baud is, if you're old enough, you might recall the old phone modem cradles, for computer network communication, from the 1980s. They were rectangular in shape and had two round, padded ports where you'd fit in your phone handset (old-style, with round mouth and earpieces of about 2 inches diameter). As I say, if you're old enough, you remember how slow those connections were.
The PAR document goes on to further say that RuBee fills a gap, in applications where bandwidth is not an issue. So it's not a replacement to RFID. At 300 baud, it couldn't be used in, say, a retailer's checkout lines, but could be used for smart shelves that communicate with the store's POS system, as necessary.
Other examples, according to the document, include "visibility of medical devices in hospitals, patient and physician visibility in OR's, product visibility in retail stores, and livestock visibility." RuBee tags can also be used in "harsh environments (near steel and water), and are expected to have battery lives of over 10 years.
Fully-decked out RuBee tags (with sRAM, displays, LEDs) will likely run <$2 tag. That's not feasible for item-level tagging, especially when item-level RFID tags are sub-forty cents, and sub-ten cent tags are on the horizon. On the other hand, basic RuBee tags could be as low as fifteen cents, which makes item-level tagging much more realistic, considering sub-five cent tags may not be commonplace for another five to seven years. RuBee base stations are expected to cost less than $100, compared to <$1000 for RFID.
Other alternatives to conventional RFID tags are experimental VLID (Visible Light ID) tags that are compatible with RFID systems (protocol level), but require direct line-of-sight between tag and reader. VLID tags do not suffer from radio interference. They can be used in areas that frequently ban RF signals, such as hospitals, or simply do not transmit them, such as underwater. RuBee, on the other hand, can perform through some solids.
These three types of tags, RFID, VLID, and LWID, offer a choice for a variety of conditions. Whether issues of security and signal interception will be solved is yet to be seen.
Additional Sources: [Storefront Backtalk, eWeek Channel Insider, IEEE.org RuBee announcement]
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