RFID is a widely used wireless electronic device used to transmit or receive data between various types of devices such as personal IDs, widely used in logistics and supply chain, item-level inventory tracking, race timing, access control, IT asset tracking, tools tracking and many more.
What is RFID?
Radio-frequency identification also is known as radio frequency identification and refers to a technology where a reader can capture data from RFID tags or smart labels via radio waves.
Radiofrequency identification is the non contacted wireless use of radiofrequency waves to transfer data. You can track inventory, assets, personal identity cards by using a unique identifier assigned with this technology tags.
What are its types and applications?
Within the electromagnetic spectrum, there are three frequency ranges used by Radio frequency identification.
1) Low Frequency
2) High Frequency
3) Ultra-High Frequency
1) Low Frequency:
The primary frequency range of low frequency lies between 125 to 134 kHz. The average cost per Radio-frequency identification tag is around $0.75 to $5.00 USD.
Applications under low-frequency RFIDs are access control, Applications with high volumes of liquids and metals, car key-fob, etc.
The best part about low-frequency RFID is it works well near metals and liquids. On the other side, it has a very short read range, low data transmission rate, a limited quantity of memory, and high production cost.
2) High Frequency:
The primary frequency range of high-frequency RFID is 13.56 MHz. It can read near contacts up to 30 centimeters, which is way higher than low-frequency RFIDs. The average cost per tag is between $0.2 to $10 USD. High-frequency tags widely used in DVD kiosks, personal ID cards, poker chips, gaming chips, library books, NFC applications, etc.
It has a large memory option, global standards and also has NFC global protocols.
3) Ultra-High Frequency:
The primary frequency range of ultra-high frequency RFID is 433 MHz and between 860 to 960 MHz. There are two types of ultra-high-frequency RFIDs.
a) Active RFID:
The primary Frequency range of Active ultra-high-frequency RFID is 433 MHz. It uses 2.45 GHz under an extremely high-frequency range. It has a wide range of 30 to 100 meters. The average cost per tag is between $25 to $50 USD. Active RFID tags are widely used in vehicle tracking, construction, asset tracking, mining, auto manufacturing, etc.
It has a very long read range, large memory capacity, a very high data transmission rate and a lower infrastructure cost as per passive RFID. On the other hand, it required complex software to track and a very high interference from liquids and metals.
b) Passive RFID:
Passive RFID primary frequency lies between 860 to 960 Mhz. Compare to Active RFID, it has a less read range which is up to 25 meters. The average cost is very low as per all the RFIDs we discussed which is $0.09 to $20.00 USD per passive tag.
Passive RFIDs are widely used in pharmaceuticals, electronic tolling, manufacturing, supply chain tracking, inventory tracking, asset tracking, race timing, etc.
It is a low cost, high read range RFID as compared to low and high-frequency RFID tags. Various shapes and sizes are available for tags. It has a global standard and very high data transmission rates.
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