RFID Solutions for Future or Another Big Brother

R.F.I.D. (Radio-frequency identification) technology provides solutions for a lot of domains, starting from transportation, product tracking and animal identification to human identification.Current uses are obiouvsly useful but some of the aplications can arouse some controversies.

This explosive technology can say everything about you in a few years.In a world of microchips every object could be tracked.How far away is the moment when this technology will lead to tracking individuals every movements and will invade your privacy?

Who wants to know where you are and what you are doing?

I. Introduction

Spychips refer to radio-frequency identification (R.F.I.D.) and microchips.R.F.I.D. It is a technology which uses a special object called RFID chip(tag) applied to or incorporated into a product, animal or person for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves.

II. History

In 1945 Léon Theremin invented an espionage tool for the Soviet Union which retransmitted incident radio waves with audio information. Sound waves vibrated a diaphragm which slightly altered the shape of the resonator, which modulated the reflected radio frequency. Even though this device was a covert listening device, not an identification tag, it is considered to be a predecessor of RFID technology, because it was likewise passive, being energized and activated by electromagnetic waves from an outside source.

Similar technology, such as the IFF transponder invented in the United Kingdom in 1915, was routinely used by the allies in World War II to identify aircraft as friend or foe.

Mario Cardullo's U.S. Patent 3,713,148 in 1973 was the first true ancestor of modern RFID, a passive radio transponder with memory. The initial device was passive, powered by the interrogating signal, and was demonstrated in 1971 to the New York Port Authority and other potential users and consisted of a transponder with 16 bit memory for use as a toll device. The basic Cardullo patent covers the use of RF, sound and light as transmission media. The original business plan presented to investors in 1969 showed uses in transportation (automotive vehicle identification, automatic toll system, electronic license plate, electronic manifest, vehicle routing, vehicle performance monitoring), banking (electronic check book, electronic credit card), security (personnel identification, automatic gates, surveillance) and medical (identification, patient history).

III. Configuration and operating principle

Pasive RFID systems have 3 components: - a reader

- the chip (tag)

- a host computer

CONTENT OF R.F.I.D. CHIPS

Most RFID chips contain at least two parts:

1. An integrated circuit for storing and processing information, modulating and demodulating radio-frequency (RF) signal and some other specialized functions.

2. An antenna for receiving and transmitting the signal.