The Dallas Zoo has received praise from zoo keepers around the world for their award-winning Giants of the Savanna exhibit. This unique habitat allows elephants, giraffes, and other species to roam together freely. What’s also unique about the exhibit is the fact that the zoo is using RFID technology to track the movement of the elephants. This is the inaugural installation of Animal Performance Systems ("APS") TangaTracker system. The solution uses the CSL RTLS (real-time-location-system) that our team reviewed ( How to Install a Real Time Location System, or RTLS ). Although RFID technology is used for tracking farm animals like cattle, elephant tracking is, well, a much bigger challenge. The zoo wants to track the exact location of the elephants all the time and the terrain has a number of obstacles including a large watering hole and varying elevations.

The increasing globalization of our food supply, food shortages, and concerns about food safety and quality is causing food producers, shippers, retailers and consumers alike to closely examine how our food is grown, processed, and handled throughout the supply chain.

In Episode 3 of The RFID Network Cable TV Series, our team makes in-depth investigative examination of food safety, food quality, and food integrity, and looks at how RFID can be used to make our food safer and fresher.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, -- The RFID Network is pleased to announce a new TV series focused on how Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is transforming our world. The RFID Network, a 30-minute educational television program, examines the exponentially expanding "Internet-of-Things", which refers to linking objects installed with RFID via the Internet, and features high-tech solutions filmed at locations all over the globe. The episodes scheduled for broadcast include: Covert Operations, Improving Food Safety, and Securing Sea Ports, with more shows in development.

The RFID Network TV show is now on 18 U.S. cable networks and reaches millions of viewers while the RFID.net website averages over 100,000 views per month.

Traditional Passive RFID Tags rely on gathering energy from the RFID Reader's signal to wake up the integrated circuit (IC) and provide the backscatter required for identification. BAP RFID tags contain their own integrated power source, which is most commonly a battery. It’s very important not to confuse BAP tags with Active RFID Tags. Active tags transmit a beacon at a defined interval. BAP tags do not transmit. The range is improved because no energy needs to be harvested from the reader to power the chip and all of the captured energy can be used for backscatter.

Why RFID Reader Sensitivity is Critical When Using BAP RFID Tags

Since our first BAP (Battery Assisted Passive) RFID benchmark tests in 2009, RFID Network engineers have received dozens of calls from people complaining that BAP tags perform no better than 20¢ passive labels. While they're both passive RFID, they are designed in very different ways. In nearly every situation, the problem is the RFID reader being used does not have high sensitivity. Obviously, some RFID readers perform better than others, but this is especially true when working with BAP tags. In this video, intended for our technical viewers, we talk with Dean Kawaguchi who sits on the ISO RFID committee to understand why reader sensitivity is critical when working with BAP tags.

Watch the two videos & read the in-depth technical article