Wireless and RFID/location based services

[spidey07]

I'm getting asked more and more about location based services. Essentially wireless systems that can track the location of a device. Current technology can get it down pretty nicely.

This has been great as far as locating rogue access points and it works well. But other than that what are the real applications that need this? Inventory/supply chain management?

 

[spidey07]

Nothing? No ideas? No applications?

 

[kevnich2]

I'd say my biggest used would be inventory tracking. Instead of having to rely on people to actually properly barcode products, I could just send a signal out and acquire a realtime inventory of all of our products in our manufacturing yard. Talk about $$$ saving

 

[spyordie007]

I've done deployment of WLANs with location tracking in mind (Cisco APs/WiSMs/WCS + 2710 location appliance). One of the customers is a hospital and they currently use passive RFID to keep track of medical hardware and are about to start a pilot to use it to track babies and child cancer patients. With another customer I have plans to do a deployment for a casino in the next couple of months, they plan on using it to track the location of their money carts.

A few other deployments, they follow the same basic desires.

Do you have an application you're looking to do it for?

 

[InlineFive]

I thought that passive RFID devices were generally very short range? How does one even begin to integrate it with 802.11x wireless networks?

 

[spyordie007]

Guess I should clairfy, it would be considered semi-passive RFID, since the devices still have batteries and still do broadcasts.

Here is a pretty good FAQ from Cisco on RFID (mostly geared for retail, but applicable everywhere):
http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/retail_RFID_QA.pdf

 

[jersiq]

My reply probably isn't what you are looking for, but your question looked rather general.

Houston Transtar uses the passive RF devices, normally used for paying tolls, to calculate drive times.

Houston Transtar

Also, as Spyordie will be trying, when my daughter was born, an RFID chip was in our hosptial admissions bracelet. It could only be deactivated on the day you left, and only after verifying that you were taking your own child. (Baby 'napper prevention)

I did a paper about RFID about a year ago, and at the time all the references I looked up basically pointed to the fact that a standard had to be made, and it had to be secure. I haven't looked it up lately, but there may have been strides in this area.

 

[BZeto]

For current RFID systems, how exactly does tracking a device work?
Is there a display that pinpoints the device for you like a gps, or does it give an audible signal based on how far you are from the device (like the older metal detectors)?

Very cool technology that seems would be useful in many businesses though.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: BZeto
For current RFID systems, how exactly does tracking a device work?
Is there a display that pinpoints the device for you like a gps, or does it give an audible signal based on how far you are from the device (like the older metal detectors)?

Very cool technology that seems would be useful in many businesses though.

It varies depending on the technology used and how it is implemented. Remember RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is not a specific technology, only a general term used for identifying "something" via RF. The concept has been around for decades and there have been many different vendors with RFID products.

Using Cisco 802.11 RFID/Location tracking you have a floor plan of your environment that includes the location of APs and obstacles (i.e. walls). When a device is detected the system uses an algorithm that takes information about the APs that can see the device and triangulates the location (taking into account information you've given about the environment). Assuming your scale, floor plan, obstacles and AP locations are accurate (which for some is a big assumption) you can expect fairly high accuracy (within 3') so long as the device is visible to at least several of your APs.

Erik