RFID Application

[Zeno Loco]

Hi,
I must create a commercial offer for a RFID + GPS solution.
I have a good experience on CF+GPS programming but the RDIF is, for
me, a undiscovered word.
Now, I have the followings doubts :
.. are there devices (integrating a GPS), with a free slot for RFID
card? In a first google search it seems they are not so common.
.. what are the difficulties in programming a RFID communication with
mobile devices?
.. how many time will I spend to develop a RFID communication routine?

There is someone that have already done this experience and that can
give me some suggestions?

Thanks
Marcello

 

[dbgrick]

The RFID interface is usually OEM dependent. As an example the Intermec
device has an Intermect RFID library that allows you to read and write
directly to the reader. The Psion Technologic writes to a file structure and
requires you to parse the xml data. The RFID data can come in several
different flavors. You might want to take a look at the EPC Global web site.
Here is the link:

http://www.epcglobalinc.org/home

Regards,
Rick D.
Contractor

 

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

You're going to have to decide what type of RFID ("RFID" has no real
meaning, other than the words themselves which do NOT imply a device type, a
bus connection, or even the protocol used to talk to the tags; it's simply
"Radio Frequency Identification"). If it were me, I'd discover which RFID
tag types you are required to use. This will limit your choice of readers.
Once you collect the list of readers that will read the tags that you have
to use, you know how you have to connect those readers to whatever device it
will work with (SDIO, Compact Flash, RS-232, USB, Bluetooth, etc.) If
you're going to try to support every tag type, prepare to have a dozen or so
different configurations. You might check with some of the portable data
collection manufacturers, as they might already have done some of the work
for some of the tag types for you. Intermec, Symbol, PSC (I guess). We
looked at trying to provide some of our devices with RFID support, but there
are just too many variations for a standard product.

We can't possibly guess at how much time you'll spend writing a
communication routine for a device that we don't have *any* idea of the
characteristics for.

Paul T.

 

[Zeno Loco]

The application is for touristic device in a indoor/outdoor museum.
I need to have a RFID antenna in the device (with also a GPS) and one
tag on each museum object, 2/3 meters should be the activation
distance.
When the tags is activated and I have recongnised the objeci ID, my
problem is solved because the other part of the application is already
written.
The right types are SDIO or Compact Flash, because no external device
should be given on tourists hands.

 

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

The characteristics of the tags have to be selected. There's no such thing
as *an* RFID tag. Each tag manufacturer has its own standards and only the
readers that correspond to those tags will work with them. You can go off
and look for tag/reader vendors that have suitable SDIO or CF readers or you
can decide that you're going to try to find an all-in-one device, like the
ones from Psion that Rick mentioned, and choose the tags based on what that
device supports. I don't know if they have GPS or not. This is where you
earn your money as a system integrator...

Paul T.

 

[Dick Grier]

Hi,

As others have said, how you go depends on the RFID hardware.

I have used SMPD-100-R/O | 2.4 GHz Read Only CF RFID Reader from SYNOTag
(Synometrix). It is a CF serial device that will work with devices that
have a Compact Flash port.

Dick

--
Richard Grier, MVP
Hard & Software
Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, Fourth
Edition,
ISBN 1-890422-28-2 (391 pages, includes CD-ROM). July 2004, Revised March
2006.
See www.hardandsoftware.net for details and contact information.

 

[Dick Grier]

BTW, I have simple example code for the Synametrix reader in my book (see
below). That code was used by a client as the starting point for an
application that was EXACTLY like the one that you describe.

Dick

--
Richard Grier, MVP
Hard & Software
Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, Fourth
Edition,
ISBN 1-890422-28-2 (391 pages, includes CD-ROM). July 2004, Revised March
2006.
See www.hardandsoftware.net for details and contact information.