Long Read Range, Low Power, Simple to Integrate…LF HDX
Oregon RFID owner Warren Leach discusses the company’s recent applications using TI’s LF HDX technology, as well as what makes LF HDX an ideal fit for harsh, wet and outdoor environments.
 |
 Listen
Warren Leach
Owner
Oregon RFID |
Texas Instruments interviewed Warren Leach, owner of Oregon RFID, about the company’s recent applications and the use of TI’s low frequency half-duplex (HDX) RFID technology.
The interview with Warren can be heard by clicking on the “podcast” button located above. You can also read the podcast transcript below.
TI: Hello and thank you for tuning in to this Texas Instruments podcast. Today we’re speaking with Warren Leach, owner of RFID systems integrator, Oregon RFID. We’ll be taking a look at low frequency RFID, discussing some innovative LF applications and talking about the use of half-duplex technology.
First I’d like to thank you Warren for speaking with us today. The last time we spoke you were working on an application for the Underwater World Aquarium in Singapore which uses low frequency RFID tags to identify fish. Could you please bring us up to date on your most recent LF applications and what you’re currently working on?
Well the Singapore Aquarium worked pretty well. The customer was very pleased. They set it up as a one-time exhibit initially in order to attract a summer audience, but their attendance went up 35% and did not slow down. It was quite a sensation in the local news and generally the media picked up on it. It was successful enough that they duplicated the entire installation and put it in to their sister aquarium in Thailand.
Another project that we’ve done is work with the U.S. Air Force to track gopher turtles in Georgia at an Air Force base. Gopher turtles are an endangered species and it’s also the state turtle of Georgia. They burrow up to 30 feet below the ground and there’s concern that the noise from the jets could be affecting them. So they put RFID tags on the turtles and they put antennas around their burrows or the entrances to them so they can tell when the jets take off if it makes all the turtles agitated or not. That’s a multi-year project that’s getting going; we’re putting a network of readers all over the Air Force base.
Another new application is tracking rocks. Tracking rocks is useful for determining the hydrodynamics of a stream. Traditionally it’s done with painted rocks but they get lost or buried. Using RFID is a brand new application for this and it allows [researchers] to uniquely identify the rocks, to be able to find them after there’s been a stream event – a damn opening or a hard rain storm – and it has allowed work in places that hasn’t been done before. One of my first customers was able to track rocks in Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park because they would not let him paint the rocks for years. Now that he’s come back with a non-obvious way of identifying the rocks, the National Park Service approved. For that application we developed a new backpack reader and portable antenna and it’s been selling very well in the geological community.
TI: Can you tell us a little bit more about TI’s LF HDX technology and how it’s different from other types of LF technology that you’ve worked with?
The most critical reason my customers use low frequency RFID is because it reads through water. Any other radio signal will not travel through fluids and we need it not only through the stream or river they’re working in but also through the fluids inside the animal. It’s also important the tags be glass tags so that they can be injected into the animal and not bother them with plastic.
A significant advantage that half-duplex has over full-duplex is a better read range. That’s very important to my customers who need to be able to track animals at a distance. We find that we can get up to twice the read range and sometimes more than that with half-duplex tags. Another significant advantage with half-duplex is that you can also build much larger antennas than you can with full-duplex. The largest half-duplex antenna is almost 200 feet across a river in Oregon and the largest full-duplex antenna that I’m aware of is about 20 feet across. That makes a very big difference when you want to tag fish in a stream or build antennas at dams, which is where my customers tend to use these products. Because they are remote stations that are battery operated, they also draw much less power. Half-duplex can draw a third to a half less power than a full-duplex system. This makes a big difference when you have to carry batteries out or when you have to side solar panels for a remote station – much lower power for half-duplex.
My customers also give me common feedback that the system is generally simpler to build. It’s easier to build the antennas, it’s easier to deal with the reader, it’s easier to provide power – the simplicity is something they notice right away and they keep coming back to buy more readers because it’s something they can understand. Researchers also like the fact that TI supports ISO standards. My customers do not like to use proprietary reader technologies and really appreciate that TI uses ISO standards through all their low frequency product line.
One area where we’re finding new uses for half-duplex technology is in salt water. The opportunities for marine applications are huge and we’re working hard to develop antennas and readers that will work in salt water. Salt water is a conductive medium; it tends to knock down the read range of any radio signal, but we’re finding that half-duplex can work fairly well in salt water where full-duplex cannot. This month a customer in Florida is installing ten readers in an estuary. He’s been building salt water antennas and we’re hoping to be able to see good results from that study soon.
TI: And that’s all the time we have for now. Warren, thank you very much for sharing your RFID insights and innovative applications with us. And thank you everyone for listening. Please stay tuned for our next TI podcast.
--------
About Warren Leach
Warren Leach founded Oregon RFID, an Oregon-based RFID systems integrator, to develop low frequency RFID products for scientific research, particularly tracking fish and wildlife. Since 2003 the company has provided solutions for customers in the US, Canada, the Bahamas, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
For more information on Oregon RFID, please visit www.oregonrfid.com. |
