For many of us, using a key to start a car, a card to access a building or room, using ski lifts on a winter sports holiday and validating a bus or underground ticket have become part of our daily routine. Without always realising it, we use automatic data capture technology that relies on radio-frequency electromagnetic fields. This technology is known as Radio-Frequency IDentification or RFID.
Just as people use RFID as they go about their daily lives, objects also use this technology, as they transit from manufacture to storage and finally the point of sale. Like us, they also carry RFID tags. The difference between objects and ourselves is that they don’t “voluntarily” present their RFID tag or card when asked. These tags are therefore read in very different conditions and often require greater detection distances.
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) can be defined as follows: Automatic identification technology which uses radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to identify objects carrying tags when they come close to a reader.