This white paper examines some of the key nascent applications that are emerging in the Asia Pacific region. A brief introduction is provided consisting of an environment scan of the current applications and challenges for incumbents and potential entrants in this region before the industry posture of new emerging applications is examined. The industry posture expounded here will include market and technology trends in RFID, the current state of the market, and Frost & Sullivan recommendations for harnessing current and future opportunities in this technology.
INDUSTRY DYNAMICS: RFID IN ASIA PACIFIC
RFID, as a technology, has been around since the 1940s with its use primarily centered on military purposes. Very little commercial work was done with RFID in its early years, and even then, progress made into making this technology more applicable was minimal, and centered across applications such as animal tracking, access control, and electronic toll collection. It was not till the late 1990s when researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) began investigating RFID's potential as a wireless track and trace technology, especially for enabling a more efficiently-managed supply chain. Over the last decade, many other academics, companies, private and government-backed bodies have been investigating and collaborating to ensure a more robust RFID technology is available for commercial use.
Although most of RFID's activities at a global level have been geared toward supply chain related activities since the beginning of this millennium, much of the traction is seen only in the North American and European region presently, while penetration in the Asia Pacific region is still relatively low with sporadic deployments, which are mostly small-to-medium scale in size. This trend in Asia Pacific is slowly changing of course but unlike the other regions, RFID is witnessing more interest in other areas; creating unique and novel applications along the way. These applications, in turn, leverage on RFID to solve or mitigate various inefficiencies witnessed in the enterprise or to make daily human life easier or safer.
INTRODUCTION TO KEY NASCENT APPLICATIONS
Overview
Applications
RFID is already making a proliferation in a myriad of emerging applications catering to a wide range of industries. While some of these applications cater to only a specific industry such as jewelry tracking, laundry tracking, or billboard tracking, there is other application, which has the potential to be used in more than one industry or be used horizontally across all industries such as document tracking. This part discusses further a couple of potential emerging RFID applications that are set to revolutionize people's daily life.
Document Tracking
The use of RFID to keep track and manage documents is fast becoming a popular choice among many, especially where security is critical. Several companies are already marketing various document tracking solutions leveraging on RFID, with a few based out of Asia Pacific. The common frequency used for document tracking solutions is high frequency (HF) but there are also other solutions, which leverage on low frequency (LF) or ultra high frequency (UHF).
The Government, banking sectors, finance agencies, legal firms, and insurance agencies have begun to deploy this technology to authenticate and have better control of documents. This is a bid to improve overall security in managing classified or high-value documents. Others are leveraging on document tracking solutions as the first step toward enabling a knowledge management solution at worksites.
An RFID label with specific information on the document itself is attached to the document intended to be tracked. Information such as the last person to have handled the documents, actual location of a specific document, date and time when the document was removed from the rack, and other important information pertaining to the document can be stored in the document tracking system. Enabling a document tracking solution will ultimately ensure overall traceability of documents can be improved, thus ensuring security and manageability of these documents is never compromised.
Many RFID stakeholders consider this as the killer application, an application with the biggest potential to be adopted among end users across all industries. This is definitely true considering the billions of highly confidential or high-value documents owned by the hundreds of thousands of enterprises situated across Asia Pacific. Although some enterprises such as banks, legal firms, multinational companies, and government agencies are known to begin embarking on implementing document-tracking systems in 2006 and 2007, it will still take some time before others begin adopting this technology for their own use due to the cost factor. It is still relatively expensive to tag each document, thus, price of these tags will need drop further to a more affordable rate before this application becomes more universally accepted.
Outdoor Wireless Sensor Network
Unlike other RFID applications, which are deployed within business enterprises, the outdoor wireless sensor network (OWSN) is the first RFID solution, which will be deployed at a country level, and potentially at regional or even a global level once fully functional. The OWSN is already in the process of being deployed across large outdoor areas in several parts of the world, including some parts of Asia Pacific, such as in Australia. With the OWSN, a whole new potential of applications can be developed for various uses.
Presently, one such company is known to be actively developing and promoting OWSN to keep track of various environmental elements or parameters such as temperature, air pressure, shocks and vibrations, and so on. This OWSN developed by a company in Australia not only aids one specific user, but can be used by end users from different backgrounds including governments, private companies, and the general public alike sharing one single infrastructure. Each application can be developed and tailor-made to suit a specific need of an end user, but all applications can sit on a single infrastructure, thus reducing overall operational costs. By strategically placing these sensor tags on the ground, public properties such as lampposts and traffic lights, these RFID sensors can detect various environmental elements to support the tracking and tracing of the designed applications.
The OWSN system consists of sensor tags with global positioning system (GPS) capabilities, access points (remote transmission unit), wireless local area network (WLAN) RFID access points, visualization and modeling software, virtual 3D imaging and modeling, relational information database, and legacy integration to provide a holistic and a comprehensive OWSN solution. These sensors, through the reactive RFID technology, generate their own power and have an indefinite lifespan, whereby creating an intelligent self-managed sensory grid that reduces power outages and increases the quality of power significantly. The OWSN operates either on 2.4 GHz or 433 MHz band.
This revolutionary technology is fast gaining traction among end users - notably governments and companies in the energy sector. Presently, SP AusNet, the largest energy distribution company in Australia, has approved the deployment of the OWSN across its network in the state of Victoria. Discussions with the Australian Government and other energy providers to deploy OWSN across Australia to monitor various parameters are under way. The U.S. Government and some 18 other governments are also considering the deployment of OWSN solution in their respective countries. Most of these projects are expected to start execution from 2008 to 2010.
Key Benefits and Returns
* Secure Tracking of Documents and Seamless Manageability
Most enterprises, both private and government, have numerous documents that hold vital information. As most of the documents are considered highly classified and confidential, or are viewable only by a select few, the need for some form of security to protect the movement of these documents from getting into the wrong hands is required. Banks, legal firms, hospitals, research and development (R&D) are among the enterprises that are likely to benefit the most with a more secure form of tracking relying on RFID. Certain document tracking systems requires a person's personal ID that contains an RFID tag to be scanned to validate if the person has access to these documents before the rack or cabinet holding the document opens. At the same time, the reader scans the RFID label of a specific document to identify specifically who has accessed which document. This will ensure that only authorized staff view these documents. This provides a tool to hold those having access to these documents with greater accountability if any document is missing or information from these documents is found to have leaked.
Managing the flow of documents from one place to another can be a challenging task, especially for larger enterprises. Additionally, current filing methods for racks may not be a foolproof method to ensure the document is placed in the correct rack. Both these issues create numerous problems for end users including loss of man hours searching for a document and unable to source a document when needed, thus, creating a sense of frustration. Besides, the document can also get misplaced. Through an RFID tracking system, end users are able to instantaneously source a specific document in a rack modified to hold readers. Moreover, the flow of documents that have been taken out of the rack and taken to a different room, for example, can be continuously monitored, if additional readers are placed in the entry and exit locations of each room. Such systems save end users time and money.
* Empowering Knowledge Management through Tracking Documents
While enterprises may have an electronic knowledge management system in place, much of their preexisting documents may still be in hard format, which is in paper form. The value of some of these documents may be extremely high to an enterprise, as it may hold information on, for instance, how to execute a particular project or a root cause analysis of a past problem faced by the enterprise. The information and experiences in these documents will be valuable for future references. Information and experience obtained during earlier projects can be reused in a later project. A document management system helps to reduce significant cost and improves overall productivity of an enterprise by ensuring past documents that contain 'knowledge' for their workers that can be easily sought whenever needed.
* Intelligent System of Outdoor Wireless Sensor Networks
The OWSN brings about tremendous benefits to the society at large, which includes the governments, private companies, and the general public. Among the benefits expected to be gained through some of the applications designed to operate on the OWSN include:
o Intelligent Energy Networks
Presently, the OWSN is capable of monitoring, detecting, and reporting pending faults on the bulk of the overhead distribution networks using reactive RFID tags with a high degree of precision. Faults in fuses, transformers, cables, and switching apparatus can be monitored by the OWSN. The company spearheading the development and execution of the outdoor OWSN is already involved in discussions with energy providers regarding this solution. It is expected that switchgear original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will begin wide-scale deployment by embedding the solution's reactive RFID tags into their products; thereby, creating the next-generation intelligent electrical switchgear products. These sensors, through the reactive RFID technology, will generate their own power and have an indefinite lifespan, thereby creating an intelligent self-managed sensory grid that will reduce power outages and increase the quality of power significantly.
o Intelligent Transport Systems
The transportation solution developed is unlike the traditional RFID transportation solutions available in the market presently. It aims to create a form of intelligence for the automobiles and transportation infrastructure with the adoption of reactive RFID and sensor technology. Its initial solution, the automated crash notification (ACN) sensor, automatically detects motorists who have crashed into fixed roadside assets such as barriers, bridges, guardrails, power poles, and signage.
Currently in the second phase of development, this solution is intended to be capable of detecting other environmental parameters such as fog, ice, flooding, or just standing water. These data will be relayed to variable message signs alerting motorists of hazardous conditions ahead, thus improving the overall safety of road users. All these events and conditions are be monitored from a small access point that will be built into the existing roadside emergency call boxes or affixed to power poles.
Additional features are also being developed to increase the potential of this technology by incorporating features that detect the rear end of cars, the activation of airbags, and potentially off-road accidents by embedding inexpensive sensors onto the vehicles. Such additional features will potentially save more lives with reduced emergency service response times, as all the events are monitored real time with the OWSN.
o Intelligent Environmental Monitoring System
The OWSN solution is also capable of keeping track of wild fires at pinpoint accuracy. Many countries that face constant threat of wild fires such as Australia lose hundreds of millions of dollars annually through damage of public and private properties. The solution enables the possibility of long-term remote sensors that are self-managing and maintenance free, with the deployment of reactive RFID sensors. This solution detects and alert fire officials when a fire is detected.
Moreover, other environmental disasters such as flash floods can be detected instantaneously through the placement of sensors across a specific location. Through this system, emergency workers can be immediately informed of any flash flood as soon as it occurs, and this will give them the time to inform anyone living in the surrounding areas to evacuate.
This solution is in the next phase of development, whereby it is incorporating another institution's expertise to develop a reactive RFID technology to offer real-time location system (RTLS) and graphical information system (GIS) solution. Through this enhanced solution, end users will be able to view virtual 3D satellite imagery in real time for event mapping and modeling through any computer or personal digital assistant.
o Intelligent Consumer and Industrial Asset Monitoring
The OWSN will leverage its use of reactive RFID wireless sensor network technology for monitoring home and industrial assets. A system that is capable of operating as a 'silent' alarm, which can be fitted to existing alarm components has already been developed. Once the system detects a particular event or an intrusion, it will trigger an alarm unknown to the perpetrator but will notify the end-user or law enforcement remotely. It potentially can keep track of the movement of various high-valued assets such as vehicles through the OWSN infrastructure. The company developing this technology is currently further enhancing this system for commercial use.
o Other Applications in the Pipeline
Various parties which include the government and energy sectors are also working together with the developers of this system to enhance and create new solutions leveraging on OWSN architecture to meet the needs of more end users. They are constantly adding new sensing capabilities to their solution by working with sensor developers. Among the many new solutions that are being investigated for commercial use are sensors capable of detecting a myriad of gaseous chemical types or water quality parameters such as microorganisms, nitrates, pesticides, dissolved oxygen, and hydrocarbons. This makes the OWSN an even more feasible and lucrative intelligent, shared monitoring platform developed for communities, governments, and essential service providers.
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