Functions And Working Of RFID As Against Bar Codes
RFID or Radio Frequency Identification actually means a small contraption or an electrical device which contains a small micro chip and antenna used to for identification, recording and tracking. The chip is designed to carry 2000 bytes of data. This device works in a similar way as a bar code or a magnetic strip that one may have noticed on a visit to a super market. A close look at food items, electronic goods, books, household products, clothing price tags, credit or ATM cards etc will show a series of black and white lines or bar codes. This assists in easy identification and pricing. RFID works much in the same fashion.
Just as this bar code or magnetic strip has to be scanned to get necessary information such as price, stock and other data, RFID too has to be scanned to retrieve information. The only thing is that it works in a more efficient and less time consuming way which is what is required in this day and age. It must be mentioned here that RFID works in a more advanced manner as compared to bar codes. One of the major reasons for this is that RFID need not be specifically positioned to be successfully read by a scanner. Just one look at the trouble that storekeepers have to position the bar code exactly in front of a scanner or swiping your credit card or ATM card in precisely the exact way to be successfully read will show how time consuming and tedious this system of bar coding really is.
Conversely RFID will function with utmost efficiency even if it is at a distance of 20 to 25 feet away from the scanner. For example, at a super market one can just load all your groceries into a bag and set you entire bag on the scanner without removing each item all over again. A highly efficient RFID system will be able to make note of all the items in the bag and take a total of your items practically immediately. This helps in saving a lot of precious time and eventually making long winding queues a thing of the past.
Bar code readers would need human intervention to be entirely successful. This required the employment of special personnel to take on the task of bar coding. Conversely in the case of RFID there is no need of any human intervention as the reading are done automatically thereby saving not only time but money and manpower as well. The system of RFID is more than twenty times faster than manual bar coding processes especially in the case of inventory. In fact some companies have recorded a time saving of upto 85% by using effective RFID systems for tracking devices.
This system of tracking with the use of Radio Frequency Identification is not something new. It has been in use for more than 50 years but it was only recently that cost of manufacture of RFID has come down drastically, so as to be used more widely. As with every other system RFID too has its own share of problems and tribulations. For example, many a times RFID faces reader collision. Reader collision occurs when signals of two or more readers get crossed or overlap. The reader is unable to read the tag and some tags are missed thereby causing confusion and miscalculation. Specific systems need to be put in place to be able to read each tag carefully to avoid disorder.