Do you know where your weapons are? RFID Does.
Posted by Patrick Sweeney on Sat, Dec 04, 2010
If you’re like me and you read law enforcement and military special operations magazines, then Cleveland, OH, Denver, CO, St. Petersburg, FL, and to even greater extent South African all mean something to you beyond dream vacation spots. They have all been in the press lately with high-profile weapons losses. A lost gun often times means a lost life or other crime associated with it. The Pentagon is also in the throes of a massive investigation into why over 72,400 weapons are unaccounted for within the Afghan National Police force.
You know how long it takes to find your keys in the morning when they are misplaced. Imagine trying to find 72,000 guns! These investigations rob local and federal governments of countless resources and time -- not to mention a lot of money. It’s an alarming trend underscores the need for greater accountability and enhanced security of weapons. Until today however, that automation was crude at best.
Imagine auditing every weapon with the press of a button, or by glancing at a web page? What about if a firearm had it’s own voice? It could tell you when it was leaving and where. If the system was truly valuable it could even tell you who took the weapons.
Next week, ODIN will formally launch our EasyArms™ software and solution for RFID enabled Automated Weapons Tracking. EasyArms™ and its use of RFID will significantly enhance weapons security and accountability for military, law enforcement, and security organizations. In the past, weapons could only be identified through active human intervention. In most instances, an armorer had to manually record weapons moves through the manual recording of a serial number on the weapon or initiate a bar code scan. Working directly with weapons manufacturers, special operations units, and law enforcement, ODIN has the expertise to know how tags should be placed within weapons. 
How an operator handles a particular weapon, the heat signature of an automatic rifle, and how to prevent the theft of destruction of the tag are just a mere sampling of the important factors all considered by ODIN in deploying a system.
Enhanced Weapon Security with RFID
Modern day law enforcement agencies are utilizing technology to be better, faster and stronger. The armory is no exception. Passive RFID to automate ATF/CALEA/DOD compliance and create a complete audit trail is a sure way to get you noticed in a positive way. It’s also the best insurance available that your agency or force doesn't end up as the lead story on your local TV network for having weapons gone missing! Want to get rid of the green "Record Book" process that ended up causing your last ATF audit? RFID makes it instantaneous. Armorers can inventory weapons racks in seconds with a combination of the systems handheld and fixed RFID readers. The system can also be integrated with a facilities personnel access system to authenticate users and the security camera system to record weapons moves.
The key to automated weapons tracking with RFID In a word the key to RFID and automating weapons tracking is PHYSICS. Getting the right tag in the right place, understanding the RF field, and knowing the proper reader to choose and it’s optimal configuration are all part of the physics of RFID. Get theses right first and you’ll get 99.9% accuracy with your automated weapons tracking.
One of our clients – a police force in Wisconsin (ask us for the case study) – wanted RFID because they knew it was the automated way to meet CALEA certification. They had an existing relationship with a bar code reader who sold a single RFID reader and said they could make it work. Thousands of dollars and several months later they got 60% read accuracy but didn’t give up. They called ODIN and asked us for EasyArms™ because they heard about it from our DOD clients. We got the physics right the first time, installed our turnkey solution and they have been getting 99.9% read rate since and can audit their entire force with a press of the button. How cool is that?
Download more information on automatically tracking and securing your weapons.