RFID Technology Trends and Applications

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is an automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technology, which records products, place, time or transaction data without human intervention or error. The technology is used for tracking animals, vehicles, goods, military equipment and security/access control, library systems, retail, hospitals, healthcare, pharmaceutical and several other applications. RFID, coupled with EPC is the technology that promises to revolutionise the capability to track goods or assets as they move through the supply chain. Differing estimates about the market potential of RFID applications have been presented by several market research organization, but all these estimates are upbeat about the booming business opportunities in the field of RFID. According to ID TechEx, this year’s global market for RFID including tags, systems and services is estimated at $26.90 billion in 2015. Datamonitor (DTML) predicts that RFID technology including hardware, software and services across all verticals, will reach $601bn market by 2010. Electronics Today, India’s FIRST Techno-economics electronics monthly, now 38 years old, organized a two-day International Conference on “RFID Technology Trends and Applications” (September 14-15, 2005), which focused on current trends in technology and the emerging global and Indian market trends in RFID, smart label technologies and products and applications in various sectors. There is a substantial emphasis on innovations in R&D, standards, regulations and security apart from a range of applications in a whole host of sectors such as retail, supply chain, logistics, library management and pharmaceuticals. This volume is a compendium of the papers.