wilamowski-b-m-irwin-j-d-industrial-communication-systems-2011

Radio Frequency Identification 8-15
the unpredictable applications of RFID technologies in affluent nations as well as in the emerging ones,
the annual turnover of all RFID-related industries will be measured in hundreds of billion dollars, and
eventually in trillion dollars.
That is why every nation wants to play a dominant role in drafting an international standard that
may allow the drafter to keep one’s strengths intact yet sacrifice nothing. In all fairness, most nations
have solid grounds for standing firm because they have dissimilar sociopolitical structures, unequal
levels of industrialization, distinct socioeconomic problems to be solved, and therefore different
expectations from the RFID.
Short of a unique standard for all nations, political entities of similar socioeconomic backgrounds
and of comparable levels of industrialization will settle for a multinational standard, so that the economy
of scale will remain applicable in keeping the unit cost of the special equipment and the tag at a low
level. As depicted in the third generation mobile phone, three to four standards are expected. Instead of
full compliance, promiscuity or multisystem and multistandard operations will be supported. In other
words, the multinational standards will share some common features, such as compatible air interface,
similar initialization procedures, accessible identification number, and preferably, the ability to write in
some common areas.
8.21 National Standards
While regulatory authorities from various trading blocks of nations are working hard in drafting a
multinational standard that is acceptable to all parties concerned; some of the national standards are
first examined.
Subsequent to the immense success of mobile phones, many wired systems are being converted to
wireless, including local area networks and the last mile system in the plain old telephone network. In
addition to the conversion of the existing systems, many new wireless gadgets at the consumer level have
been launched under the aegis of various wireless interconnect formats such as WiFi, WiMax, ZigBee,
Bluetooth, and ultra wideband. Due to the proliferation of wireless devices, the power rating of any
proposal must be rigorously scrutinized.
Probably due to its projected role in the logistics industry, the RFID has been favorably treated by
many regulators. For example, the permissible output power in the United States is 4.W EIRP. With special
approval from the Federal Commission of Communications (FCC), the rating could be increased to
20.W. Under the normal condition without license, the effective range is 8.m and the rate of reading is
200 tags per second, provided that the tags are moving at a speed of less than 3.m/s. Compared with the
HF RFID, significant improvements are observed.
Although it is the right of a sovereign country to draft a national RFID standard, more and more
countries are convinced of the advantages in adopting one of the multinational standards. Today,
there are two major multinational standards led by the European Union and the United States as listed
in Table 8.1. Unfortunately, there is none in Asia where most products are made. For easy reference,
national standards in selected countries are listed in Table 8.2 [18].
TABLE 8.1
Major Multinational Standards
Lead Nation
European Union
United States
Nations
Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark,
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Herzegovina, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Jordan,
Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovak, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom.
Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay,
the United States.
© 2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC