Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) Technology

In Context 

  • Baggage tags equipped with Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) will soon be available at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, marking a first of its kind for the country.

What is Radio-frequency identification (RFID) Technology?

  • About:
    • It is a technology that uses radio waves to automatically identify various tagged objects. 
    • It is a wireless tracking method that uses tags and readers to track objects.
    • The Low Frequency, High Frequency, and Ultra-High Frequency bands are used by RFID systems.
  • Components: 
    • Transponder, receiver, and transmitter. 
  • Functioning: 
    • The RFID reader continually sends radio waves of a specific frequency in the RFID system.
    •  If the object to which the RFID tag is attached is within the range of the radio waves, it provides feedback to the RFID reader, which then identifies the object based on the feedback.

What are the different kinds of RFID?

  •  There are three types of RFID tags that are commercially available.
    • Passive tags  :There is no power supply for passive tags. They acquire their power from the readers’ incoming radio waves.
      • Passive RFID tags do not have a battery and are powered by the reader.
    • Semi-passive tags  :Semi-passive tags comprise an internal circuit with a power source, but rely on the radio waves received from the reader to transmit the response.
    • Active tags :  The internal circuit of active tags is powered by a power source.
      • Batteries are being used to power active RFID tags. It also utilises its own power supply to send the response to the reader.

Comparison between RFID) technology and Barcode 

  • RFID uses radio waves to communicate data from RFID chips to readers that do not require line of sight in order to obtain the data, whereas barcodes use light to read the black-and-white pattern printed on the sticky tag. 
  • Barcodes are simple and easy to copy or counterfeit, whereas RFID is more complicated and difficult to replicate or counterfeit.
  • RFID tags are expensive compared to barcodes.

What is a Barcode?

  • A barcode is a printed series of parallel bars or lines of varying width used for entering data into a computer system. 
  • The bars are black on a white background and vary in width and quantity depending on the application. 
  • The bars represent the binary digits zero and one, which represent the digits zero to nine processed by a digital computer. 
    • These barcodes are scanned using special optical scanners known as barcode readers, which come in a variety of shapes and sizes. 
    • The majority of these codes use only two different widths of bars, however some use four. 
    • The numbers that make up a barcode are also printed at the bottom. One of the most well-known examples of a barcode is the QR code.

Source:IE

 
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