By Mark Devlin, IEN Staff
May 1, 2008 -- Not to be left out of the wireless fray, RFID is another dimension of wireless. RFID costs have to come down even more in order for adoption to spread. Also, the ways in which RFID will be used are about to change dramatically. Currently, for some products, the RFID tag is activated on the way out the door to the supply chain, and follows that item to the point of purchase. Dr. Jeff Reed, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of Wireless @ Virginia Tech, says that usage will soon expand, from the conception of the product to its disposal—which could impact many elements right down to tracking specifically what’s being put out as trash and ending up in landfills (or ending up on eBay), and perhaps even being able to better track specific causes of, for example, waterway contamination. “It becomes more of a context-aware RFID tag.”
Reed also commented that RFID tags will be able to form ad-hoc networks to communicate not only with systems (a la today’s E-ZPass) but with each other and, for instance, nearby sensors. In his example, Reed described how an RFID tag might be attached to the muffler of a Ford Taurus. The tag would be programmed at various points in order to store such information as where the part was manufactured, its own serial number, from what batch it came, and the specific serial number of the vehicle on which it is installed. The tag could then communicate with other such tags on that particular vehicle. “Are you a Ford Taurus? Am I properly installed?” Upon arrival at the dealer for sales, the tags could be automatically programmed to indicate where and at what time it arrived—and later, to whom it was sold. Tags could network with an RFID-equipped instrument panel, for instance, to alert the driver (and later, the technician) about pending problems.
Less keyboarding and manual recordkeeping, of course, are the goals. Beyond the often non-specific trouble codes of today’s vehicles, tomorrow’s system may very well create a situation in which the dealer calls you to let you know there’s a problem—they already know what the problem is, the part’s already been ordered, and it’s been placed in inventory just for your vehicle—through the magic of RFID. Even later, those same serialized tags could be reprogrammed to store information about when and to whom the vehicle was sold (and easily help trace whole vehicles entering chop shops, only to exit as expensive, stolen parts, for instance).
“There are also end-of-life issues that will be addressed,” says Reed. “At some point, you’re going to want to turn these things off.”
Staying with vehicles as an example, consider the amount of wiring—from headlights to taillights, especially in electrically intense areas such as the engine compartment and instrument panel: miles and miles of wiring per each individual vehicle—and enormous, related costs from design through assembly and, later, from testing through failure, troubleshooting, and repair. Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to eliminate the wiring, at least for devices that can be self-powered (such as sensors)?
“You’re right,” said Reed. “Wiring costs in a vehicle are astronomical.” Are costs for such systems still too prohibitive? Yes. However, according to Reed, “I spoke with manufacturers years ago about this, and they’re certainly interested. I think they’re working on it right now. I would expect that this stuff will show up fairly soon, as it’s been on the radar screen for a number of years.”
As mentioned above, sensors will also shift more to wireless from wired. The future of wireless sensors networks (WSNs) in a factory context, however, is uncertain.. WSNs such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, and others will likely be subsumed into already-existing or future forms of 802.11 networks for now, and the above-mentioned networks in the future, as long as the parent network can handle the connections, data bandwidth, and high number of sensor nodes required in the typical factory environment.
Perhaps more important is where the physical sensors themselves are headed. Considering, for example, last year’s tragic collapse of the I35W bridge in Minnesota, and the more recent near-miss in Philadelphia in which a crumbling highway support forced the shutdown of Interstate 95, sensing technology will certainly move from the level of spot-check testing instrumentation to being integral parts of the nation’s aged, failing infrastructure.
Combining many elements of the above, it’s easy to imagine retrofitting hundreds of marginal bridges and other structures with wireless sensors connected en masse, for example, via geographically prevalent UHF systems that will be unused by television as of next year. Expensive? Sure. Ultimately, however, such expense would be minimal, much more accurate, and consistently reliable than current spot-checking procedures. Also, what price can be put on lives lost due to the collapse of another major public structure? Signal transmission elements such as transmitters, receivers, and towers are largely already in-place; creating the UHF sensors, powering them—and most importantly, monitoring them—require little new technology but, rather, a focus on the problems, solutions, and already-available technologies shifted to this new and critical application. Beyond wirelessly monitoring existing structures, expect stress, load, vehicle-counting, failure, and other sensors to be included as standard, built-in devices on new elements of the nation’s infrastructure. Also easily conceivable is the natural connection with on-road signage systems to automatically reroute traffic when a potential problem arises—even before engineering, construction, and emergency personnel can be on the scene.
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REFERENCES
ADDITIONAL READING
A Sampler of Cutting Edge Engineering Research
Princeton University
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Replacing Wire With Laser, Sun Tries to Speed Up Data
New York Times, March 24, 2008
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Special Reports: 10 Emerging Technologies 2008
MIT Technology Review
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Forecasts For the Next 25 Years
World Future Society
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Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2007
Wired, December 27, 2007
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