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New long-range RFID technology from VTT for Chinese road tolls
20.03.2007
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is developing a traffic and road toll monitoring system based on long-range RFID remote identification technology in China. The new system could become the foundation for nation-wide traffic and road toll monitoring. The new technology will be soon deployed in a city with a population of 7 million. Readers will be installed on each of the city's bridges during this year. The goal is to eventually expand the RFID reading system to cover the entire city and use it for traffic control purposes. Nation-wide adoption of the system would require millions of readers and hundreds of millions of RFID tags.
In Western countries, road tolls utilise either active long-range tags or a
GPS-based positioning system. However, passive long reading range UHF RFID
enables extremely low-cost technology for road tolls or other traffic
applications. It is easier to first commercialise new long-range RFID
technology in China before introducing it in the West, since compared with
European countries, China has a much more open infrastructure.
Logistics
applications in the future
VTT will deploy its long-range
RFID technology solutions in China through FennoID, a Finnish company
established for this very purpose. FennoID is a shareholder in ReadTech, a
recently established Chinese company which markets the systems in China and
invests in mass production of RFID tags. The company will supply a city with
one million RFID tags, with deliveries scheduled to begin before the end of
the year. In the first phase, some 100 readers for the road traffic
application will be installed on the city's bridges. In the future, the
company will also supply RFID tags and systems to the huge and ever-growing
Chinese transport and logistics market. The first non-transport applications
are designed for personal identification and logistics solutions for the
automotive industry.
Preventing counterfeiting of products
Low-cost
RFID technology offers vast application opportunities, and it is continuously
expanding to new fields. RFID technology can also reduce and even prevent
counterfeiting of products – drugs, for example – which is a common problem in
Asia.
Heikki Seppä, Research Professor at VTT, believes it
will not take long before tagging technology is used in electronic driving
licences and to identify cars – at least in China. Potential RFID applications
include parking and speed monitoring systems, road tolls, border clearance and
theft prevention. In traffic control RFID identification can be used to clear
the way for ambulances and fire engines. The police and the insurance sector
have already expressed an interest in the advantages offered by RFID
technology. RFID tag technology was originally developed mainly for logistics
purposes. According to Seppä, it is essential that the technology is also
utilized in transport and payment applications. Thanks to large volumes, the
cost of both RFID tags and readers can be brought down to very low levels.
VTT
has been actively developing RFID technology for more than ten years and made
significant advances in the field globally. For example, the integrated
circuit and antenna used in the RFID tag now introduced in China are based on
innovations made at VTT. VTT holds several patents related to tagging
technology and remote identification.